In its report on the top ten technologies and trends for 2010, research firm, Gartner stated that one of the strategic technologies that will have an impact on businesses for the next three years is the reshaping of the data centre. Carl Kleynhans, VP for English and Portuguese speaking Africa at APC by Schneider Electric, believes that this type of approach is even more critical now, in the wake of the global recession.

“Today’s challenging times have seen that companies need to work smarter and on a smaller budget,” he explains. “Currently, these lower budgets mean that many organisations are deferring major IT deployments, making now the ideal time for CFOs to undertake efforts to reduce energy costs and operate more efficiently.”
According to Gartner, previously, design principles for data centres were simple: identify what you already have, estimate growth for 15 to 20 years and then build to suit.

“Newly-built data centres often opened with huge areas of white floor space, fully powered and backed by an uninterruptible power supply (UPS), water-and air-cooled and mostly empty. However, costs are actually lower if organisations adopt a pod-based approach to data centre construction and expansion. If 9,000 square metres is expected to be needed during the life of a data centre, then design the site to support it, but only build what’s needed for five to seven years. Cutting operating expenses, which are a nontrivial part of the overall IT spend for most clients, frees up money to apply to other projects or investments either in IT or in the business itself.”

Kleynhans agrees wholeheartedly with this concept. “The ‘pay as you grow’ model is becoming a necessity when it comes to building a data centre. This approach of rolling out your data centre in bite-sized chunks is one that makes complete sense given the current challenging economic outlook. This means that companies pay only for the infrastructure that they need today by adopting scalable equipment, which allows designers to deploy an ‘on demand’ IT, power, and cooling infrastructure.

“This tactic also enables businesses to be more adaptable to the ever-changing needs of IT equipment and the processes they support, all the while maintaining a high level of availability, manageability and economic efficiency.”

APC by Schneider Electric, a global leader in critical power and cooling services, provides industry leading product, software and systems for home, office, data centre and factory floor applications. Backed by the strength, experience, and wide network of Schneider Electric’s Critical Power & Cooling Services, APC delivers well planned, flawlessly installed and maintained solutions throughout their lifecycle. Through its unparalleled commitment to innovation, APC delivers pioneering, energy efficient solutions for critical technology and industrial applications.