As we enter the new year, many data center managers find themselves asking "What's next?" in terms of data center efficiency. In 2014, we saw a significant increase in organizations purchasing technologies to improve their data center operational practices and reduce overhead by focusing on cooling and space efficiency. However, as the demand for enterprise and data processing services shows no sign of slowing, 2015 could bring a renewed need for advanced processing power and almost certainly an increase in storage densities.
Eric Hanselman, chief analyst at New York-based 451 Research, talked to Search Networking about his predictions for the new year.
"The year ahead is integration and operational efficiency," he remarked. "Networking is beginning to take a small step backward from the budget allocated. Enterprises will continue to add capacity where necessary, but it won't have the same budgetary emphasis that occurred last year."
Instead, Hanselman predicts, organizations will be looking to add new components to support computational density. Unlocking the business value is arguably becoming more important than the technology itself, meaning data center managers will likely be asked to maximize investments in big data and analytics. In most cases, this will require organization to bring on board a whole new set of skills, which may spark a rise in partnerships with managed service providers in efforts to help manage costs.
This shift will not take place immediately, but data center managers will need to be aware of the need to maintain maximum efficiency and reliability in their data center. By starting to investigate into how their own facility management strategies could be improved by adopting resiliency and energy efficiency practices now, organizations are more likely to realize operational finance gains in 2015.
