Intelligent Data Centres Issue 03 | Page 29

EDITOR’S QUESTION HOW SHOULD ORGANISATIONS APPROACH DATA CENTRE MODERNISATION? ata centre spend in the Middle East and North Africa will reach a record-high of nearly US$5 billion in 2019, industry experts have announced. This comes as organisations drive data centre modernisation as the foundation of their Digital Transformation. D In 2019, the Middle East and North Africa’s data centre systems spend will grow by 2% to a record-high of US$5 billion, according to a recent Gartner report. Organisations are modernising data centre infrastructure to optimise costs, increase agility, foster innovation and operate more efficiently, argues the UAE- based IT infrastructure and information management consultancy and solutions provider Condo Protego. “As Middle East and North Africa data centre spend reaches record highs, CEOs recognise that data centres have moved from a cost centre to a profit centre,” said Savitha Bhaskar, COO, Condo Protego. “Modernising data centre infrastructure is a top priority in 2019 for organisations to store, secure and analyse more data than www.intelligentdatacentres.com ever before, deliver new digital business models and scale up as businesses grow.” Condo Protego has worked closely on the data centre modernisation strategies and implementations for a wide range of Middle East public and private organisations. In the Middle East, Condo Protego is seeing strong demand for Dell EMC’s hyper- converged infrastructure solutions, such as VxRail hyperconverged infrastructure, to integrate computing, storage, networking and virtualisation in data centres. “Data centre modernisation can be a complex undertaking across lines of business,” added Savitha Bhaskar. “CIOs should work with specialised channel partners to develop Digital Transformation roadmaps, identify data centre solutions that best meet business needs and reduce risk. Automation solutions can help realise utility for storage, servers and apps in faster and more efficient business environments.” Dell EMC says proper automation tools can reduce data centre discovery from four to six months down to four to six-weeks and eliminate 98% of human errors. Issue 03 29