In 2023, enterprise IT users are grappling with managing digital transformation, which has turned out to be a bit more complex than expected. Data centers form the backbone for any digital transformation initiative and need to be secure and resilient to all the computing demands.
Data center operations comprise the systems and workflows within a data center that keep the data center running. Without an effective and highly reliable data center operations team, transformation is near impossible.
W.Media’s Cloud and Datacenter Awards 2022 awarded Princeton Digital Group’s SG1 Team as the best Data Center Operations Team in the Southeast Asia region. The Awards recognizes the importance of efficient operations teams in a data center. Asher Ling, Managing Director, Princeton Digital Group Singapore comments:
“Princeton Digital Group has been a W.Media partner and a supporter of the organization over the years. The W.Media awards are well regarded in the industry, and we are thrilled to be recognised in Data Center Operations Team of the Year, SEA as well as in the category of Top Technology leader, APAC. These awards demonstrate the stellar work that our team has done over a challenging year and showcases our strength as a technology leader in the sector.”
Data center operations consist of establishing and managing network resources, assuring data center security, and monitoring power and cooling systems. Getting the basics right is a precursor to success in any industry. This industry is no different.
Data centers are undergoing a huge change. This transformation is touching every aspect—from design, usage of materials and power to the kind of talent that will be in charge of the facilities. What is “data center transformation”?
Simply put, it refers to the process of making changes to a data center in order to improve its overall functionality and performance. Some experts define and characterize data center transformation as large-scale programs of change that affect many of the key parts of the data center.
Legacy data centers will need to handle greater volumes of data while seamlessly managing workloads across disparate, distributed environments, Gartner said. On average, most data centers need to be refreshed every three to five years in the new world.
In the past, data centers used to be refreshed once in 7 years or so. This represents a change of purpose. If one looks at the past, a data center refresh was largely focused on reducing operational costs. Now, in addition to reducing Opex, the goal of a data center transformation is to drive digital business outcomes.
Hit refresh
If business outcomes have to be achieved, then data centers and the technology that powers them, need to be seriously looked at.
In a data center, physical space is one of the most important aspects to look at. This is because housing servers, network equipment, power and cooling all require adequate space.
New technologies can improve a data center’s performance while maximizing space utilization and reducing energy requirements. This can give the data center more room to store data and run workloads.
For example, replacing existing hardware with self-contained racks can help optimize space utilization. Self-contained racks include their own cooling mechanisms to support higher densities within the data center, providing greater bandwidth without increasing space.
Next-generation technologies such as immersive cooling can enable IT to further increase server density. The goal is to optimize capacity, without increasing operating costs, so that the data center can support evolving business needs. Physical hardware will play a key role in data center transformations, but hardware isn’t the only strategy for IT.
Increase in data center jobs
Soon more data centers will need to add manpower to handle more technical work. In 2023, data center jobs are expected to increase by 2%, according to reports. Just like many other data center operators in the world, companies have been having a hard time hiring high-demand roles such as technicians and analysts of power systems, control specialists of facilities, robotics technologists, amongst other roles.
Attracting, developing, and retaining talent are important for the data center industry.
Concerns remain
Often, customers fear that once they migrate to a data center, they’ll be stuck with their existing, on-prem hardware to run their new data center. Legacy systems create a critical challenge for companies looking to implement an efficient data center modernization strategy.
Data centers often hang on to these programs due to staff familiarity. Still, the “convenience” they provide to employees masks a difficult-to-manage backend with the potential disaster for the network engineers using them; this is also why enterprises should prioritize modernizing their strategy.
Cost Factor
While modernizing an aging data center can take a great deal of time and resources, upgrades result in significant cost savings in the long run. Legacy data centers are less efficient than new or modernized data centers, which means that the cost of powering less efficient systems can quickly add up as yesterday’s platforms attempt to meet today’s connectivity demands.
Therefore data center operations play an essential part in building and maintaining efficient digital infrastructure.
