Intelligent Tech Channels Issue 06 | Page 37

INTELLIGENT DATA CENTRES with an increased expectation on availability. Digital transformation also requires a change in the way the IT department, and the wider business, is structured. This is critical, as the rules don’t change with digital transformation or new characteristics of modern applications and infrastructure; instead, the delivery and implementation do. The argument could be made that there are even more rules now due to the heightened expectations on critical services. Businesses must strengthen controls and deliver complete visibility in a new way to meet these needs, opening up the opportunity for innovation in the datacentre. While digital transformation comes with its challenges, businesses should remember that leading this transformation shouldn’t fall to any one individual within the organisation; it should become a conversation between those providing IT services and those who consume it. IT can no longer operate as a silo; instead it should operate as an internal service. Internal IT groups providing critical applications to a business unit should have a discussion on how an application is implemented, as well as considering what could happen in the event that something doesn’t go according to plan. In preparation, businesses should agree to a 15-minute recovery time and point objective for their critical applications. But even planned SLAs for recovery time objectives can falter with businesses setting these at 1.6 hours, when in reality, recoveries have taken five hours. This can have a significant impact on the availability decisions that must be made to meet the needs of the Always-On Enterprise. Neglecting digital transformation can lead to loss of business, loss of revenue and, possibly most damaging, the loss of business reputation, with 73 per cent of businesses feeling that application downtime or data loss will negatively impact customer confidence and brand integrity. As such, many organisations will benefit from a strategic approach to digital transformation, and the key is to spend time gathering information, priorities and capabilities of all stakeholders before making any decisions. The back-end IT infrastructure also needs to change to embrace digital transformation. This digital transformation, and the ability to meet the needs of the Always- On Enterprise, can only be met when the modern datacentre has the capabilities to meet the demand. Is the datacentre highly virtualised? Does the datacentre have investments in modern storage systems? Is the datacentre capable of extending functionality to cloud and service providers? These needs can only be met if the modern datacentre has these essential characteristics.  37