Moving out
With capital expenditure off the agenda, IT has to move
fast says Interxion UK Managing Director Greg McCulloch
Let’s be straight here: in a business world radically Radically changed times call for radical measures and many
reshaped by the credit crunch, capital expenditure is viewed firms will look at how IT operations are conducted in their
as poison by finance directors. In 2009, plans for new entirety. Some will choose to outsource activities but others
projects will be put on hold, cost saving will be the name of will choose to be more selective and seek to retain control
the game and the only innovative ideas to be entertained while reducing their administration burden.
will be those that reduce bottom-line spending.
For these, data centre hosting should prove an attractive
option, providing the means to create partnerships with
operations experts who know how to manage complex
In such straitened circumstances systems, provide reliable connectivity and maintain
IT departments will be asked tough applications in a secure setting. Just as important,
questions and will be looking at fresh costs will be predictable and lacking the surprise
new approaches rather than relying on the element of spikes and troughs that are loathed by
old formulas that served them in happier Financial Directors.
times. In particular, capital expenditure will
be frowned upon and managers will be Data centre hosts can also help firms better
looking at moving as much as possible understand their energy-efficiency issues
to the operating expenditure side of the as guidelines such as The Green Grid’s
spreadsheet. Power Usage Effectiveness (PUE)
and Data Centre Efficiency (DCE)
They will want to rent rather than buy metrics, aid understanding of
and outsource rather than build. how effective their data
Insidiously, as power has risen over centres are in
the last several years, this has
created another problem.
The accumulation of servers and other
kit has led to huge power draws and a risk
of overheating and overcrowding. IT managers
have found themselves struggling to cope with
sharply rising power costs that directly affect bottom-
line finances, and a battle to contain their resources in an
energy-efficient -- and space-efficient -- manner.
Also, power consumption has become a very significant conserving power and where they stand compared
factor in the cost of data centre operations, so much so to peers.
that the traditional ‘Chinese walls’ that existed between
facilities managers and IT bosses have begun to tumble as More broadly, many technologically advanced firms will
companies realise that this is an issue that needs to be explore cloud computing and the promise of moving all
addressed. data centre operations out of house in much the same way
as electricity is provided by an external grid. In a recession,
Developments such as low-power microprocessors, storage companies will make sharp changes in direction and the
subsystems and the like have helped control growth of the bold will gain competitive advantage over the laggards. The
problem but not solve the problem itself. question is: which do you want to be?
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