Having built the business case for the data centre, and invested considerably in translating the business case into a technology showcase for the organisation's data centre, most CIOs wonder what's next? How does the investment in the data centre continue to deliver results for the business and how does the organisation use the data centre to do more, while spending more wisely.
Maiendra Moodley, head of department: financial systems and processes, SITA, discusses the future role of the data centre from a business perspective, and how organisations will be able to creatively use data centres to promote their competitive edge.
We asked Moodley: Is there money to be made or a business case for a data centre, and how do organisations leverage this opportunity? Can they leverage their data centre? What role can the data centre play in a 'new look' business environment? How does an organisation use the data centre to do more, while spending more wisely?
The extent to which an organisation can leverage its data centre is related to whether or not it is able to achieve a competitive and agile edge from the investment, he says. The challenge for any organisation is whether its strategic focus is able to use the benefits of having a data centre, such as improved mobility to delivering and enhanced cloud offerings. In the absence of being able to align the data centre to the organisation's strategic goals, the value of any investment in a data centre is not likely to be fully realized, he continues.
Moodley believes that any date centre can provide IT with an opportunity to re-ignite the conversation on how to achieve better alignment with the business by being able to promote agility and mobility at a lower cost. It is also possible to re-architect the organisation's infrastructure to promote agility and improve the degree of responsiveness from IT to the business. This is because a data centre is able to utilise technology ranging from virtualisation to cloud computing. A data centre can also assist in reducing the replication of infrastructure and services, minimising shadow IT.
Moodley cautions that reducing costs and enhancing IT and overall business engagement requires that the implementation of the data centre is also actively positioned as a value enhancing business initiative, as opposed to being only an IT cost-saving initiative.
By optimising the data centre, IT will start to be viewed as an enabling internal partner, moving the enterprise forward towards achieving a highly efficient, software-defined infrastructure that will enable a business to better use the latest technologies and in so doing take advantage of future opportunities.
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