The Importance of Data Centres for Business

It doesn't matter what industry you work in, companies depend on the accurate recording, updating and tracking of their data on a minute-to-minute basis to survive in today's economy. Employees use this data to complete accounting reports, calculate sales estimates, and improve customer service. Organizations no longer struggle to gather customer and partner data, the challenge now is how to effectively store, access, and analyse that data to drive strategic business decisions.

The data centre industry continues to be affected by the exponential growth of data and the recognition that there is enormous value in that data. Market analyst firm IDC says by 2020, the data the world will create and copy annually will reach 44 zettabytes or 44 trillion gigabytes.

Key priorities to consider when choosing a data centre:

Power
The first is the availability of power. In a country that is notorious for battling to keep the power on, this has moved to the top of the priority list. The main purpose of a data centre is to provide reliable, uninterrupted data access, and the importance of power backup in a data centre cannot be underestimated.

Connectivity
Given the virtual and mobile nature of how companies do business today, data centre connectivity plays a vital role. It's how the information, applications and services hosted in the data centre are accessed, and it has a profound impact on their performance, security and reliability. All companies large and small rely on managing and distributing huge amounts of data across multiple locations.

The best way to future-proof your data centre investment is to choose a provider that offers a wide range of connectivity options and can adapt as your needs change.

Future forecasting of demand
The average life of a data centre is only about 15 – 20 years. When you think about the changes in IT in that timeframe, you can begin to see how hard it is to predict capacity requirements. How can you make effective decisions on future demands at today's speed of change? Part of the answer is having solutions that can flex with your business. Starting with the infrastructure, it's important that the data centre itself can adjust to the business requirements over time, where you can simply dial capacity up and down in line with live business requirements.

As we move to the digital economy, the data centre will become even more important as the nerve centre within the business. What and how we innovate in the data centre will mean the difference between success and failure for many businesses.

If you believe you have the right IT skills to assist businesses to face the challenges that data storage offers, we want to talk to you. Communicate Recruitment is an IT recruitment company with consultants that specialize in working with developers, architects, consultants in CRM and ERP through to BI and BA. Check out our vacancy page and apply today.

If you require skilled staff to ensure the success of your business, contact us today to assist you with all your permanent and contracting staff requirements.