That said, many organisations with whom we speak tell us of deferred new buildings, planned gleaming HQ complexes that never quite seem to arrive on the horizon, and yet business growth continues to put pressure on existing estates – physical and logical.
This phenomenon is seemingly at its most acute when it comes to Data Centre evolution. Companies that have set their sights on a forthcoming migration to a purpose built DC in new premises suddenly find themselves forced to ask the question, “How do we manage with what we've got today – space wise – for an as yet undefined duration?”
Maximising the use of space, power, cooling solutions and of course DC infrastructure is thus becoming an increasingly common challenge for CIOs and IT Directors in this region. Optimisation techniques – applied in parallel across the network and DC estate – offer a great opportunity to respond to the continuing needs of growing businesses when additional space is no longer on the agenda.
Virtualisation due diligence assessments offer yet further opportunities to accurately forecast likely returns from consolidation within existing space constraints. Customers considering virtualisation are becoming more wary of committing to migrations with miracle-RoIs attached, as prudent CFOs demand more predictability around opex and capex implications from these kinds of technologies.
Vendors bring some amazing technologies to market, but customers are getting wise to the online generic RoI tool and getting smarter about using modular consulting packages to underwrite returns that can actually be delivered!
