How to Modernise your Data Centre for 2020

The data centre market has changed beyond recognition in the past few years, as the power of cloud computing has swept through the IT landscape and reshaped everything in its wake. That doesn’t mean the enterprise data centre as we know it is a thing of the past, but its role has changed dramatically.

To help break down those changes, and offer some advice on how to best make that shift, we brought together Lee-Martin King, datacenter and enterprise sales manager for AMD in EMEA; Matt Kimball, senior analyst for servers at Moor Insights Strategy; and Paul Monroe, CTO at Standard Advisory London for a Big Conversation on the topic.

During the event we talked about how these changes have shaped their businesses, which is available on-demand here [insert hyperlink here], but in the meantime, here are some of the key takeaways.

IT as a service provider

The cloud has had an impact on all aspects of IT, but when it comes to the data centre specifically it has really shifted the power centres when it comes to buying and provisioning infrastructure.

“For me, the biggest impact I have seen on data centre and as a result infrastructure, is what I call the cloudification,” Kimball at Moor Insights Strategy said. “When you think about the impact of cloud on IT organisations and the business it is hard to deny the impact it has had on the way IT operates and the way people consume IT resources now.”

That instant access to infrastructure has forced IT to adapt in the way it supports the business, and this is something Monroe has first-hand experience of at the financial services company Standard Advisory.

“Organisations, specifically financial organisations, need to focus on their differentiators and adopting a higher rate of technology change rather than being big IT organisations,” he said.

The benefits of modern infrastructure

A couple of key benefits came up time and again during this Big Conversation: cost savings and flexibility. These are also somewhat linked, as enterprises today want the ability to use and reuse hardware for different workloads.

“There is more longevity in your hardware now and more variety of applications you will expect them to service and furnish going forward,” King at AMD said.

“Getting to market faster and responding to customer needs faster are tangible business benefits,” Kimball said. “That ability for a consumer to access your services faster, versus your competition, will define the winners and losers.”

What next?

Choosing the best tool for the job and shifting buying patterns at large organisations may be noble aims, but it can often be difficult to enact a change of this scale.

“There are a lot of new technologies and architectures that have come into the market, when you are going through this cloudification of the data centre and looking for the right technology to deploy, understand your needs,” Kimball advises.

“That mass of ice is pretty solid and I am a big fan of doing bake offs or comparative analysis, there is so much a benchmark will never tell you,” Monroe said. “Every organisation is different, sometimes we need to pick our battles but it is important to always be thinking and analysing the fact there may be a different way to do things.”

Getting started is the next step in modernising your data centre for 2020 and beyond. Once you have , AMD is on hand to help you get started building a modern, flexible and cost-effective data centre.