IT Briefcase Exclusive Interview: Challenges and Successes in Maximizing Computing Infrastructure Investments

At the recent Gartner IT Infrastructure, Operations Management & Data Center Conference 2017, representatives from Cisco, Herbalife, Northwestern Mutual, Mercury Insurance, NASA JPL and U.S. Department of Energy gathered to discuss strategies in improving the operational performance of their computing infrastructure during an interactive panel. The panel, hosted by Nlyte Software and moderated by Nlyte CMO, Mark Gaydos, offered insight on how the leading organizations utilize technology to reduce costs while tackling high business demands by sharing real-world successes, challenges and best practices.

• Q: What are the critical issues surrounding the computing infrastructure for data centers?

A. First and foremost, all data centers must optimize their uptime and reliability levels which directly effects customer service. Downtime, power outages and service interruptions are not options when it comes to 24x7x365 connectivity and service. Additionally, optimizing data center computing infrastructure directly helps curb operational expenses which in turn helps control overall computing costs. For a Colocation data center for instance, this translates into lower fees for tenant organizations. Finally, scalability is a critical issue for data center computing infrastructure – allowing for expanded services without concerns of downtime.

• Q: How are organizations today improving their operational performance through use of technology?

A. Software suites are critical technology options to improving operational performance. The best technology solutions are those that bridge the traditional gap and coordinate between IT and Facilities.

For the data center sector, a Data Center Infrastructure Management (DCIM) software suite is a critical part of operations. It enables operators to fully manage the physical infrastructure of a data center as well as: optimize ongoing operation, reduce computing costs, expedite support for new applications, make best use of physical resources – and most importantly allow for seamless integration of data center operations into other business management solutions.

• Q: What are some of the top challenges facing businesses today?

A. Businesses across all sectors are challenged with rising costs – from energy costs, to overall operational costs – while pressured to manage uptime and secure all data. With recent highly publicized, brand-damaging power outage stories across various industries, and security breaches, businesses are deploying the best technology available in the market to sustain uptime, lower costs, and overall maintain optimal performance levels.

• Q: What types of technology tools and solutions are the “must-have” for organizations seeking to lower operational costs – especially for mission-critical facilities?

A. There can’t be enough said about the critical role a DCIM technology plays in optimizing operations at mission-critical facilities. DCIM helps organizations save millions of dollars in power and cooling, power consumption, energy costs, hardware maintenance and more. A well-developed DCIM can offer quick ROIs for all costs associated with moving, adding and changing assets in a data center – not to mention offering insight and a holistic view across all assets and their lifecycles, so Facilities gain the highest savings from equipment and retiring equipment that no longer offers efficiency.

• Q: What guidelines can you provide to enterprise data centers in optimizing their operational performance security, while maintaining costs?

A. Facilities and IT teams can no longer manage the data center(s) with old spreadsheets that become out of date as soon as a team diligently spends time to physically inventory and audit the facility. This means operators must invest in and deploy technology solutions with the highest value and savings to their operational performance, security, compliance and bottom line — without compromising uptime.

The fluidity of changing business needs, means thousands of assets are moving around in a data center — knowing exactly where all the assets are, what they’re doing and how they are connected and interconnected is a critical part of maintaining costs. Spreadsheets can’t keep up with these constant changes – they are more like blindfolds. Organizations can no longer afford to operate with blindfolds on. They must deploy tools that offer savings that can be put back into business innovations that can optimize operations and help the company remain competitive.

Mark Gaydos is Chief Marketing Officer for Nlyte Software, the leading data center infrastructure management (DCIM) solution provider for seamlessly automating data center operations and infrastructure into an enterprise’s IT ecosystem.