Building the Data Center of the Future

Microsoft estimated there are about 10 million Windows Server 3003 deployments in existence with about 64% of those on physical machines. That means non-virtualized environments where the OS is likely running a single workload. Companies used the Windows Server 2003 EOL to modernize their infrastructure to the latest technologies like virtualization and cloud. Big data, mobility and the cloud are changing the way information moves and connections are made across the organization. In this fast-changing environment, organizations need to respond quickly with IT solutions that are cost-effective and allow for real-time resource allocation.

Most organizations have built their IT capabilities over time, using a blend of hardware and software technologies with varying degrees of upgrades. But for some this approach has bottlenecked key infrastructure performance elements with isolated servers, storage or networking unable to deliver IT when and where needed causing productivity issues. Companies of all sizes are faced with these basic, yet common IT challenges:

Challenge #1: Aging IT Resources
Productivity often declines when an organization has a collection of aging servers from different times and vendors working with a collection of new and old storage and networking systems. The infrastructure is at constant risk of failure with rising licensing and maintenance costs. Older technology simply can’t do as much as modern infrastructure. This limits the company’s flexibility in all kinds of areas, like data analysis for better decision making, communication and collaboration, or developing a new application.

Challenge #2: Data Volume
Anyone in IT knows that storage volume is increasing and requires more storage resources, longer retention times and more management resources. It is increasingly difficult to use traditional tools for provisioning, backup, device migration, replication, extraction, translation and loading. In today’s world, data growth never stops and is generated at unprecedented rates from many new sources – audio, video, social media, and business applications.

Challenge #3: Limited Bandwidth
Mobility is changing the way we work. Mobile solutions and services have become critical to most organizations, but employees and customers armed with a myriad of mobile devices, supplied through cloud-based services and generating bandwidth-intensive workloads are putting severe strains on legacy network capabilities.

Challenge #4: Security
All organizations are potential targets of security breaches. Estimates of cyber crime is in the billions of dollars and continues to climb. Mobility and cloud services pose new security challenges. And with BYOD more prevalent than ever, important business data is co-mingled with personal data and applications, making it more vulnerable to data leakage.

The Data Center of Tomorrow
The data center of the future will look different from the data center of today. It will be built on a more flexible infrastructure to support both traditional and newer cloud environments. That infrastructure will be based on virtualization, convergence and automation of all layers of the data center, including servers, networks and storage.

Convergence and virtualization will deliver data that is accessible anywhere and at any time. Empowered with an automated, managed approach to sharing and accessing this data, businesses will be able to deliver that data in real time with complete scalability. The benefits of a building a modernized data center can be tremendous. If addressed correctly, this presents opportunities to realize cost savings and a more responsive, agile data center.

Ingram Micro can help throughout the entire technology lifecycle. From audits and assessments of the current infrastructure to planning for systems that are designed to work together, our technical architects will work with you to help your clients meet their business objectives. We’ll help you source, deploy, service and manage new technology solutions to enable a more flexible IT infrastructure. Contact Ingram Micro Professional & Trainings Services to learn more.