Weighing the Alternatives to an On-Premise Data Center Refresh

Despite predictions of its impending demise, the U.S. on-premise data center market remains healthy. More than half of all IT workloads are still running in on-premises data centers, and industry analysts predict steady market growth over the next five years — even in the face of economic uncertainty and IT budget restrictions.

In-house infrastructure offers undeniable benefits. Organizations with their own data centers have more control over their data and systems, they can better support homegrown applications, and they can customize infrastructure to suit their needs. However, greater control can also mean greater overhead and expense, especially around Physical Infrastructure and Hardware.

In many cases, the Physical Infrastructure necessary to run a campus data center has lifecycles measured at 10-15+ years, oftentimes more with the right maintenance. On the other hand, compute hardware, in particular servers and storage, have shorter lifecycles and can often call for a refresh on a much shorter scale.

Hardware vendors recommend replacing servers every three to five years before they begin to experience performance issues due to memory, processing, and I/O limitations. Having weathered the past 2 years in refresh limbo as it were, many organizations are nearing that threshold today. Case in point; Nearly half of U.S. server hardware currently in production, is more than four years old, according to research from Forrester.

Evaluate Cost-Efficient Options
While nobody wants to risk downtime or lost opportunities due to inadequate hardware, there are ways to maintain efficiency without busting the budget. Here are a few steps you should take before committing hundreds of thousands of dollars to a full-scale hardware refresh:

After you’ve considered your options, you may determine that a refresh is required. Like any mechanical device with moving parts, data center hardware has a finite lifespan. Once it wears out, it can lead to system crashes, poor application performance, reduced functionality, and security vulnerabilities. However, there are still ways to meet your business requirements while staying within your budget.

Data Center Hosting

A hosted data center arrangement, sometimes called Bare Metal as a Service (BMaaS) can give you access to the updated infrastructure you require without upfront hardware purchases. In this model, you essentially rent infrastructure from a third-party provider who runs your workloads on either shared infrastructure or on dedicated data center resources. You access your resources through a secure network connection.

A BMaaS environment also offers advantages over running workloads onsite or on public cloud platforms. Hosting providers have typically made significant investments in redundant power, cooling, and connectivity, along with physical security and data protection. With dedicated infrastructure, you gain greater control over the environment than in the public cloud, yet the provider assumes responsibility for many administrative and management functions. In some cases, there can even be savings in turning down on-premise data center by recovering operational expenses for the cooling and power infrastructures that need to be maintained 24x7x365.

Before undertaking a server refresh, organizations should evaluate their environment and determine if consolidation, repurposing, or extended support agreements can help delay investments. Managed data center solutions are another great alternative for organizations that are looking to maintain control of their IT infrastructure while conserving cash. Call us to discuss your options for a cost-effective solution that addresses your operational requirements.