Modern technology is constantly evolving, and there are always new opportunities to delight customers and staff by equipping them with new and improved digital resources. It can be daunting to take on projects to overhaul workflows, or improve analytics and databases, but with the right infrastructure in place you can seamlessly and frequently improve your IT. Data centres are the foundation that modern IT is built on, and taking advantage of working directly with a data centre is an opportunity to find the right infrastructure to support the growth and development of your business.
Get the most out of your digital transformation
Digital transformation is the essential process of upgrading your IT and other digital technologies, ensuring your staff are equipped with everything they need, and your customers are provided with reliable services, 24/7. Understanding what you need to get out of your digital transformation and setting goals will continuously improve the lives of your customers and staff, and is much more valuable than going through digital transformation for its own sake.
The Covid-19 pandemic and how it forced businesses to change is the clearest example digital transformation becoming a valuable tool for businesses, rather than an unavoidable responsibility, with offices suddenly closing. ‘Work from anywhere’ (WFA) is an ongoing trend, and IT systems have had to be updated significantly to handle this. Having a flexible and reliable IT system is the only way to keep your business ready for large-scale changes like this.
Make sure you avoid disruption
We are all familiar with scheduled downtime, and the frustration that comes with not being able to access something on demand. It can be daunting to launch a large-scale upgrade to your IT system, let alone a migration to a new IT platform, since you don’t want to risk too much disruption frustrating customers and staff. Not only do you need to take down systems to upgrade or migrate them, and then deal with any teething problems that arise in the aftermath, you also have your IT team focussed on this big project, so usual maintenance and monitoring can be deprioritised, leading to issues in other parts of your IT system.
Avoiding downtime requires careful planning and strategy so that you can strike the perfect balance between upgrades and maintenance. Before migrating or otherwise upgrading any systems, carefully review to see what the knock-on effect could be, and have a full plan in place so that the process is as quick and seamless as possible. At the same time, you should be keeping a regular eye on your existing systems and their underlying infrastructure to make sure that they continue to perform. By isolating and upgrading parts of your IT, while maintaining the rest of the system, you can make incremental changes to your IT, allowing you to continuously upgrade your systems, without having to regularly take down systems or deny services.
How data centres can help with incremental and innovative changes
When you’re working in-house, any changes you make to your server room will have a significant impact on your IT services. However, if you place your IT in a data centre, either through colocation or cloud services, then they will support you with advanced infrastructure that you can rely on.
Any changes to cooling, power, or network infrastructure will be handled by your data centre, and since they’re equipped with redundancies, maintenance or upgrades won’t require downtime.
Your data centre will also be able to help with upgrades to your IT system itself. Large-scale upgrades don’t need to be done with a single all-encompassing project; instead, your data centre will help you with incremental changes. An IT solution tailored to your business will let you focus on upgrading subsections of your IT to minimise disruption, like back-end databases, analytics, and anything else non-customer-facing. And when you do need to make changes to customer-facing systems, your 24/7/365 data centre can make the changes out of working hours to minimise disruption.
Other advantages of data centres
As well as supporting your digital transformation, hosting your IT in a data centre comes with a range of benefits that will futureproof your business, including:
- Redundant power, network, and cooling, to avoid downtime, even in the case of a power failure.
- Taking IT out of the office will free up space for more desks and make future office moves easier.
- Consolidating IT services will make budget tracking and planning easier, as well as move IT from Capex to Opex.
- Providing access to cutting edge and more sustainable technologies, like immersion cooling.
- Free up your IT team from day-to-day maintenance to focus on other business-critical projects and strategy planning.
- 24/7/365 remote hands will allow for rapid responses to issues at any time of day.
- Upgraded physical and cyber security will allow you and your clients peace of mind.
How can Redcentric help you?
No matter what type of IT you’re currently using, our expert team can advise you on how to create a tailored IT solution to support your business, and professionally manage your IT whether you’re using colocation, cloud, or a hybrid system.
If you want to get some pressure-free advice on how you can create an adaptable IT system without creating disruption, get in touch.
