Intelligent Data Centres Issue 28 | Page 41

EXPERT OPINION at the heart of this resurgence . Most importantly , this all needs to be seamless if organisations are to maximise their competitive advantage , be it through improved customer experience , faster time to market for products or more effective sales teams .

So the data centre has its moment to shine , but it must also become a more financially predictable and manageable asset .

Understanding ROI in the data centre

Let ’ s sit in the CFO ’ s chair . Too often the data centre appears as a financial sinkhole – because while its essential role is undisputed , there is always a sense that its capacity to handle workloads is not keeping pace with what was initially expected . Its power and cooling demands don ’ t seem to be reducing , despite advances in technology .

And at some point , there will be that knock on the door asking for the budget to expand the data centre footprint . So , as margins tighten and the need to return value from each investment increases , there is a growing dissatisfaction with the ROI on many data centres .

This situation creates tension . IT and facilities teams – who may not share resources or reporting lines – are asked to deliver more , but frequently they may feel they cannot . In most data centres today , the facility is run at a conservative level to avoid outages .

Operational teams are at full stretch to deliver performance from a facility that may not be optimised to deliver against such demands .

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