Ten Keys to Data Centre Development Success. This fifth and last part of our “Next generation data centres for winners” articles focuses on picking a partner, remembering networks and policies and optimising automation. You’re off to a great start down the next-generation data centre journey. Here are ten parting thoughts.

Avec Benoit Reuter, Sales Director, Dimension Data Luxembourg 

1.The Network is the Lifeblood

There are lots of great benefits driving consolidation and virtualisation, but these trends can backfire if you don’t first ensure the soundness of the network. The next-generation data centre — with its interconnections between onsite infrastructure, mobile devices, co-located facilities, and cloud elements — wouldn’t be possible without a sound network. The network is the real key to the kingdom.

2.Pick Your Partners Wisely

The market is maturing, but that doesn’t mean all data centre providers are equal. To realise the full benefits of your cloud and data centre strategies, you need a specialist data centre network integrator skilled in procurement, logistics, and integration services.

3.The Three V’s of Big Data

There’s a lot to be learned by analysing what’s known as Big Data, but it’s a whole lot different from the kinds of data that have traditionally flowed into the data centre in the past. Big Data tends to arrive in massive volumes, and it tends to be a wide variety of data types, including social media, audio and video files, and web logs. That’s volume and variety. The third V is velocity — this data is collected and analysed with great speed.

4.Virtualisation and Storage

Virtualising your server and network environments is a great way to simplify IT, but it’s a big change in the architecture and processing structure. You need to also look into your storage architecture, to ensure that it enables the kind of agility promised by virtualisation, rather than inhibiting it.

5.Don’t Neglect the Policies

Imagine a library that accepted books on any topic, tossed them into a big pile, and didn’t keep track of what was checked out, nor what was hopelessly outdated. A data centre without strong policies in place would be just as useless. Policies determine what data is accepted, how it’s secured, how it’s analysed, where workloads are processed, when data is archived or discarded, and other questions. Your policies must follow into the next-generation data centre, and be updated as necessary. 

6.Business Units Drive Change

Who’s buying cloud solutions? Certainly the IT department is, but so are the business units themselves. Cloud solutions can sometimes seem simple enough that users decide to bypass IT, but just because it’s possible to leave IT out of the loop doesn’t mean it’s a good idea. The best bet is to bring all together to plan for success. 

7.What’s Wrong With the Cloud?

People across most organisations are sold on the potential of cloud services and applications, but there are some naysayers. They worry about such technical challenges as availability, integration with networks and data centres, data sovereignty, and security.
All of these potential pitfalls, however, can easily be overcome as long as you choose a reputable cloud provider with the right experience and skills.

8.Navigating Data Sovereignty

Data sovereignty regulations spell out who owns data, and how it’s generated, stored, and handled. They must be followed carefully, they vary from country to country, and lots of people view them as a hassle. There are silver linings, though. For example, the care you take with customer data can be a source of brand equity and confidence. And connecting with a provider well-versed in data sovereignty can help facilitate your entry into other parts of the world — ahead of your competitors.

9.The Promise of Automation

The move to the cloud offers access to new automation tools and possibilities. You can’t automate everything, so what do you automate? You’ll need to gain an understanding of where automation will add the most value. Workloads that don’t change much throughout the year aren’t worth automating, but workloads that change a few times a day offer a great opportunity. Just remember that automation is only as useful as the process changes it enables — automation that ignores process is likely to disappoint. 

10.Hats Off to the Hybrid

It’s hard to overstate the potential of the cloud, but remember that the next-generation data centre often has many elements, including private infrastructure on-premises. This kind of hybrid model is great because it leaves close to home any functions and workloads that might work best there, while leveraging the best cloud capabilities.