Data Center Optimization: How To Avoid The Pitfalls
These days, more businesses than ever are reliant on data centres. If you are involved in the cloud or AI in any way, your business needs dozens or hundreds of server racks to provide customers and clients with the processing power they need.
But what are the pitfalls of this business model? What do a lot of providers get wrong? That's what we explore in this post.
Table of Contents
Ignoring energy efficiency
One of the biggest mistakes that many companies that use data centers encounter is energy efficiency issues. Energy efficiency is one of the primary bottlenecks to successful data center operations. If cooling or air flow management is not correct, it can lead to massively escalating costs and even hardware damage. Cooling alone accounts for 40% of total consumption, so rationing it where it's needed is critical.
To avoid these issues, conduct regular energy audits and get expert consultants who can tell you where you might be going wrong. Also, if you can use real-time energy sensors and IoT technologies, that's also useful.
Poor infrastructure and capacity planning
Poor infrastructure and designing only for your current needs without thinking about future growth is one of the biggest bottlenecks for data center planning. When you don't have spare capacity, it leads to lots of downtime during upgrades, and you're constantly having to add bits and pieces here and there in a piecemeal fashion. Not only is this expensive, but it also prevents you from planning in the way that you want.
To avoid this, get the best server parts wholesale supplier. Ask them to provide you with the infrastructure you need, like high density racks or capacity on demand. Also, if they offer IT professionals, consult with them regularly to figure out the best strategy for your expansion.
Underestimating TCO
You also see a lot of data centres underestimating the total cost of ownership (TCO). Many entrepreneurs focus solely on the up-front build cost. They don't think about things like maintenance, ongoing power consumption, and upgrade expenses. These all need to be factored into the typical 5-10 year life of a regular data centre.
To avoid this problem, you can use software that allows you to model the total cost of ownership. These use industry-leading data to provide you with realistic contingencies on how much you are likely going to have to spend as operations get underway. Then you can figure out whether the investment is worth it overall.
Neglecting power supply redundancy
Finally neglecting power supply redundancy is a big one when it comes to data centers. Many providers make the mistake of failing to account for this potential contingency. When this happens, it can lead to poor redundancy and an excessive demand on mains power supply. Outages that happen at scale are extremely dangerous for data centres and can lead to a loss of trust and even a loss of information.
To avoid this problem, make sure you have multiple redundancies and power sources in place. If you can use renewable energy and batteries, that is even better.
For more tips and tricks, check out these articles:
