Q + A + Q + A + Q + A + Q + A + Q + A + Q + A + Q + A + Q
IAN JANSEN VAN RENSBURG , SENIOR SYSTEMS ENGINEER , VMWARE IN SUB SHARAN AFRICA
EDITOR ’ S QUESTION
When referring to data centre resilience , one can investigate many aspects of a data centre – physical room , cooling , power , security , networking , hardware , etc . However , a main area of focus is the software components . Largely , thanks to virtualisation and the emergence of cloud , data centre architectures have shifted from being hardware-centric to software-controlled . Compute , network and storage virtualisation have transformed the corporate data centre into a more fluid , efficient platform for business applications .
The software-defined data centre that can be seamlessly linked to several mega cloud providers has delivered great benefits to the IT organisation , including reduced capital spending , higher asset utilisation and enhanced IT productivity . Virtual machines ( now also with container technology and managed by Kubernetes ) continue to be a foundational technology for modern data centre and cloud computing . However , some companies face the challenges of the people , processes and fastchanging technology required to support the technical and organisational changes within their organisation . Data centre leaders need to focus on the following to increase their data centre resilience :
Training and driving skills for IT staff and developers , along with innovation :
Despite the new modern data centres being software-defined , automated and self-healing , the human aspect will always be there .
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THE SOFTWARE- DEFINED DATA CENTRE THAT CAN BE SEAMLESSLY LINKED TO SEVERAL MEGA CLOUD PROVIDERS HAS DELIVERED GREAT BENEFITS TO THE IT ORGANISATION , INCLUDING REDUCED CAPITAL SPENDING , HIGHER ASSET UTILISATION AND ENHANCED IT PRODUCTIVITY .
Teams need to be skilled and experienced to support and operationalise the modern data centre .
Optimised IT and staffing spend :
Maximising the utilisation of the physical infrastructure greatly increases the value of IT and staff investments while minimising IT spending . Virtualisation ensures optimal use with fewer physical resources , resulting in the IT staff spending less time on physical maintenance activities .
Increased IT infrastructure simplicity :
Because SDDC is configured and assigned granularly through policies , organisations can either alter policies or apply a new policy to adjust capabilities to meet new business demands automatically .
Accelerated time to value :
Automated provisioning and management of key resources can drive business value . Agility in IT allows the organisation to respond quickly to changes in the marketplace . Modern , cloud-native applications require modern architecture and operations . Traditional data centre approaches to IT , whether in architecture or operations , will neither scale nor provide the agility that businesses need as they adopt private and hybrid cloud . When an SDDC is properly deployed , the value propositions of the technology are truly impressive . • www . intelligentcio . com INTELLIGENTCIO
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