Tuesday, August 28, 2012

Why Companies Opt In For Data Center Outsourcing?

Over the past few years the data center facility has evolved as a crucial infrastructure for storing computer devices and other allied components that comprises of storage and telecommunication systems. It also comprises of backup power, environmental control systems, redundant data communication connections and security equipments. In this regard, fire protection and HVAC too has become crucial elements for system recovery and maintenance.

Should You Outsource Data Center Solutions?
When it comes to datacenter solutions and facilities, the obvious choice where most enterprises get stuck is whether to build or outsource data center requirements. Whatever option an organization decides upon it needs to be analyzed based on factors like requirements and value the service is going to add on building or outsourcing. The other consideration that enterprises need to take into account is that the IT department time must be completely focused on their core responsibilities. Hence, deciding to outsource a data center needs careful review of the options at a strategic level first keeping in mind the business and growth perspective.  Other factors include asset inventories, budget estimations and facility requirement.


Benefits of Outsourcing Data Center Facility
Today numerous organizations small, medium and large scale from all industry domains has understood that data center outsourcing is one of the apt ways to align business and IT in a cost-efficient manner. There are numerous business advantages that are linked to outsourcing. The organization can proactively monitor and manage their hosted IT architecture, attain maximum financial and operational efficiencies and increase consumer satisfaction. Today eminent solution providers specializing in 
shared hosting services have introduced innovative data center outsourcing solution.


The features and benefits are:
* Helps the company to align with changing business requirements
* Complies with corporate governance
* Cost advantage
* Custom solutions
* Provides scalability in IT operations to fulfill the growing business demand
* Access to latest technology
* Business continuity

* Accountability through SLAs
* Offers access to skilled expertise
* Energy-efficient data centers
* High consistency and accessibility
* Helps organizations to realize the true potential of IT and not just manage expenses

Therefore we see that outsourcing data center infrastructure by partnering with any esteemed solution provider not just results in security of IT architecture from any kind of technology obsolescence, but it also enables in complete freedom and elasticity in everyday IT functions. In the process, it helps in reducing operational and financial overheads.

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Wednesday, August 22, 2012

Tips for Achieving Energy Efficiency in Datacenter Sector

There was a time in the past when the number of data centers was significantly less than it is today. Today almost all metropolitan cities are fast becoming a data center hub. The reason behind the mushrooming of data centers is the shift from a paper-based economy to digital based one. As a result of which data centers, which are centralized repository housing critical business and operation support systems for data processing, data storage, and communications networking became common and essential to ensure business continuity. The growing use of the Internet contributed to its mushrooming thus leading to increased energy consumption. When it reached alarming proportion, the federal government passed the public law 109-431 in 2006 entrusting Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to examine the rapid growth and energy consumption of computer datacenters.

The study conducted by EPA brought out many startling facts that if allowed to continue would jeopardize the future. The study revealed that in 2006 the data center sector consumed about 61 billion kilowatt-hours (kWh) (1.5 percent of total U.S. electricity consumption) for a total electricity cost of about $4.5 billion. This was double the electricity that was consumed for this purpose in 2000. This accelerated the need for developing solutions for energy efficiency in this sector. The following are some of these solutions.

Datacenter Outsourcing
Gartner defines datacenter outsourcing as “a multiyear or annuity contract or relationship involving the day-to-day management responsibility for operating server/host platforms, including distributed servers and storage. “ It is the process of contracting with a vendor to provide services ranging from hosting, managing and maintaining an entire data centre to more distinct tasks such as upgrading servers or backing up data. The advantages of datacenter outsourcing are cost savings, reduced capital expenditures, improvement in quality, operation expertise, risk management, improved service levels, satisfied ever-stricter compliance requirements, reduced server real estate, and reduced energy use. The different services include shared hosting services, firewall services, managed servers, dedicated hosting services, storage networks, and disaster recovery services

Data Centre Consolidation
Datacenter consolidation refers to the merger of two or more datacenters into a single facility. When compared to managing multiple data centers. Managing and maintaining a larger data center is much easier and cost effective.

Data center Automation
Automating high volume and labor-intensive repetitive tasks help in reducing costs, increasing visibility and control, reducing errors and enhancing service levels. Hence, datacenter activities such as service provisioning, configuration, workloads, compliance and so on are automated.

Datacenter Virtualization
It refers to the creation of a virtual version of a datacenter. Data center Virtualization helps in reducing operational complexities, increasing scalability, and enhancing performance.


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Tuesday, August 14, 2012

Cloud Computing Ushering in New Business Ability

The technological era has advanced from the time when enterprises used single to few desktops to perform the organizational functions. Today the corporate environment is made up large number of computer systems, desktops, laptops, printers and storage devices all networked within an organizational setup and even with branches and offices worldwide. 

With the aggressive competition prevalent in the business circles and the need for globalization, organizations tend to spend in a vast portion of their exchequer for infrastructure upgrading. They however, need to find methods to streamline the business process and reduce the operational overheads while ensuring productivity levels. The techno savvy business world today, is abuzz with “cloud” and the benefits of cloud computing services. Though this technology has been around for some time now, it has gained momentum and has also evolved because of the efficient and cost effective methods of handling of IT related issues in the organization.

Wikipedia defines the term Cloud computing as -”the delivery of computing and storage capacity as a service to a heterogeneous community of end-recipients”. The data center providers who take in the maximum IT work load for the technologically sound business world, uses this technology to help the IT departments of corporate sectors to relocate to a separate network on the cloud. The cloud computing providers then ensures the maintenance of databases and access to applications.

Data Centers offer cloud computing services  to the clients either as Infrastructure(IaaS), a public cloud platform or software(SaaS).  The Cloud based services through a public cloudplatform   are offered   as a pay-per-use model facilitating computing within cloud. This paves way for online provisioning and management via the web irrespective of the time and place. The highly multi-tenant environment available on the cloud provides organizations with scalable servers and storage in real-time facilitating elasticity of service.

The on-demand model cloud computing service for network access provides organizations with significant reduction in costs, increased storage and high automation which helps to keep applications up to date with extensive flexibility and control of data. Further, the   high reliability, up time and increased mobility allows organizations to access information from anywhere irrespective of the location and device.

Based on shared hosting services  the data centre uses the infrastructure either as shared hosted or co-hosted one. This helps organizations to reduce the investments required in additional infrastructure. Other benefits of cloud computing services include secure remote access, ability to expand accessibility, application programming interface and agility.

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Tuesday, August 7, 2012

Tips for Achieving Energy Efficiency in Datacenter Sector

There was a time in the past when the number of data centers was significantly less than it is today. Today almost all metropolitan cities are fast becoming a data center hub. The reason behind the mushrooming of data centers is the shift from a paper-based economy to digital based one. As a result of which data centers, which are centralized repository housing critical business and operation support systems for data processing, data storage, and communications networking became common and essential to ensure business continuity. The growing use of the Internet contributed to its mushrooming thus leading to increased energy consumption. When it reached alarming proportion, the federal government passed the public law 109-431 in 2006 entrusting Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to examine the rapid growth and energy consumption of computer datacenters.
The study conducted by EPA brought out many startling facts that if allowed to continue would jeopardize the future. The study revealed that in 2006 the data center sector consumed about 61 billion kilowatt-hours (kWh) (1.5 percent of total U.S. electricity consumption) for a total electricity cost of about $4.5 billion. This was double the electricity that was consumed for this purpose in 2000. This accelerated the need for developing solutions for energy efficiency in this sector. The following are some of these solutions.
Datacenter Outsourcing
Gartner defines datacenter outsourcing as “a multiyear or annuity contract or relationship involving the day-to-day management responsibility for operating server/host platforms, including distributed servers and storage. “ It is the process of contracting with a vendor to provide services ranging from hosting, managing and maintaining an entire data centre to more distinct tasks such as upgrading servers or backing up data. The advantages of datacenter outsourcing are cost savings, reduced capital expenditures, improvement in quality, operation expertise, risk management, improved service levels, satisfied ever-stricter compliance requirements, reduced server real estate, and reduced energy use. The different services include shared hosting services, firewall services, managed servers, dedicated hosting services, storage networks, and disaster recovery services
Data Centre Consolidation
Datacenter consolidation refers to the merger of two or more datacenters into a single facility. When compared to managing multiple data centers. Managing and maintaining a larger data center is much easier and cost effective.
Data center Automation
Automating high volume and labor-intensive repetitive tasks help in reducing costs, increasing visibility and control, reducing errors and enhancing service levels. Hence, datacenter activities such as service provisioning, configuration, workloads, compliance and so on are automated.
Datacenter Virtualization
It refers to the creation of a virtual version of a datacenter. Data center Virtualization helps in reducing operational complexities, increasing scalability, and enhancing performance.


Other Links