By Patrick Schmidt
In the past, before the Coronavirus killed our regular get-togethers, my IT professional peer group would always joke about the three great myths of the IT industry. The three are as follows: First, the mainframe is dying. Second, no one stores anything on tape anymore. And third, this is the year of the Linux desktop.
None of these are true as the IBM z15 mainframe is barely a year old, tape is still the cheapest way to store nearline data, and Windows 10 and Mac OS X control nearly 94% of the desktop market. These days, I believe we need to add a fourth myth: The data center is dead or dying.
How would we know? Isn’t everything in “the cloud” these days? Not so, according to the latest Uptime Institute survey of 846 data center professionals. Among the first of their 14 key findings is, “The enterprise data center is neither dead nor dying. The switch of critical loads to a public cloud is happening slowly with more than half of workloads expected to remain in an on-premises data center in 2022.”
I don’t believe the Uptime Institute is saying that the momentum is away from the cloud or stopped, just that it is not happening as quickly as some had predicted. The reality is, some workloads will never move to the cloud and in some way, the data center will always endure. Just like tape.
A second key finding jumped out at me. According to the report, “Operators admit most of the outages were their fault. Three-quarters of respondents admit that, in hindsight, their most recent major outage was preventable. With more attention and investment, outage frequency would almost certainly fall significantly.” Equipment is more reliable than ever, but interoperability issues often plague even the best kept data center. In addition, datacenter managers are often stretched thin and routine updates can get pushed to the bottom of the priority list.
Again, from the key findings of the 2020 Uptime Institute report, “The data center staffing crisis is getting worse. The portion of managers saying they have difficulty finding qualified candidates for open jobs has risen steadily over the past several years.”
One final key finding could be directly related to the second. “Bigger outages are becoming more painful. Outages generally continue to occur with disturbing frequency, and the bigger outages are becoming more damaging and expensive.” So, add these three things to the never-ending list of responsibilities. Keep operating your data centers with less help, transition to the cloud, and provide five-nines of uptime. But how?
LRS IT Solutions is uniquely positioned to assist our clients at every stage of this challenging journey. The solutions we offer can help you and your company respect the past but embrace the future.
One solution is our Technology Lifecycle Review, which is a deep dive into your infrastructure support model. We take the time to identify your assets and also reconcile their associated coverage to make sure you have the coverage you need. Your data center is going to be around a while, and we can help you keep it in order.
We can also provide robust cloud solutions built on industry leading, reliable, scalable, and secure platforms. Our skilled resources can provide your team with best practices in cloud design and deployment.
Finally, if you are struggling to meet the demands of your current workload or need some help on a special project, we offer a range of professional services. You can lighten your load and delegate one or more of your tasks to a member of our seasoned team to free up time for other pressing projects.
Yes, the data center and cloud are both here to say. Fill out the form below and let LRS IT Solutions be your go-to resource for expertise in both.
About the author
Patrick Schmidt is a Technology Lifecycle Management Specialist with LRS IT Solutions. For more than 20 years, he has been helping customers get a firm grasp on their asset and contract management with a combination of comprehensive service level analysis and lifecycle management best practices.