Category: Blog

With Hurricane Florence now in the history books, having left behind a swath of damage that covers several states, it's a good time to start considering your own disaster recovery plan. The Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) itself notes that 40% of small businesses won't reopen after a natural disaster, so if you want to avoid that fate, setting up a disaster recovery plan can help ensure that the next disaster isn't a fatal one.How to Set up the Right Disaster Recovery PlanThe right … [Read more...]

When it comes to establishing a data center, there are three ways generally recognized to do so. It can be set up wholly on the business' premises, wholly in the cloud, or by using a mix of cloud and physical systems. This is called a hybrid data center, and for some businesses, it's just what the doctor ordered. Yet there's a problem with hybrid data centers that their operators are starting to discover: how much power they're using.Why Hybrid Data Center Efficiency Isn't up to ParHybrid data … [Read more...]

“Intelligent storage” may sound like a vague buzzword, but there's actually a lot more to it than the fairly simple name denotes. Understanding just what intelligent storage is and how it can be useful is the key to getting the most out of it.What is Intelligent Storage?Intelligent storage is a Hewlett Packard Enterprise (HPE) development that's designed to make the most of an increasingly cloud-based environment. It's the result of over three decades of advances in computer storage … [Read more...]

Carrying out a task like digital transformation in the data center can look like a daunting task from the outside. Just getting people behind such a change can be a challenge. To help smooth the way, it's worth considering some likely issues that will make the digital transformation that much simpler.What to Watch Out for in Carrying Out Digital Transformation in the Data CenterA few key points will take care of most of the major rough spots going into digital transformation in the data … [Read more...]

It's easy to think, when bringing in new equipment, that the original equipment manufacturer (OEM) is going to be the best source for fixing any problems that emerge. The OEM built it, after all, and who knows a product better than the people who made it in the first place? It turns out, in the case of data center hardware maintenance, that the OEM can be a good option, but also the most expensive, prompting some to consider third-party hardware maintenance instead.What is the True Cost of OEM … [Read more...]

If you've ever embarked on a major room remodeling project—like “bare walls” or even pulling down drywall—you know it's a great opportunity to change those little things that irk you about a room. Change switch locations, the presence of outlets, and so on. The data center is no different, and when embarking on a data center modernization project, it's a great chance to build in extra security.Augmenting Security With a Data Center ModernizationIf your data center is … [Read more...]

While many business owners insist on abiding by the policy that it’s important to handle the bulk of their operations in-house, more forward-thinking organizations understand the value of outsourcing specialized tasks to third parties that have a particular area of expertise. This is especially true when it comes to the upkeep of today’s technology. Yet not all third-party maintenance providers offer the same set of services, nor do they all take the same approach to customer … [Read more...]

If you've played a game on PC lately, you know one of the biggest questions to ask is: “will this work on my PC?” Every PC game has a list of system requirements that must be fulfilled before the game will actually work on that system. In a way, a software-defined data center isn't much different; it has a certain roster of requirements, though not quite so cut-and-dried as a PC game's list. There's a lot to consider, so here's a look at what you should keep in mind when planning a … [Read more...]

Increasingly, businesses are coming around to the thought of owning a data center. As such, there are a lot of options in the data center space, and one of the latest—and least understood—is the modular data center. Getting a better handle on what it is, and what it isn't, can be a huge help in determining if this technology is the right one for your business.What You Should Know About the Modular Data CenterA modular data center, much as the name suggests, is a data center that's … [Read more...]

One of the greatest disconnects between IT and the C-suite is the issue of return on investment (ROI). Sometimes it's not so easy to boil down “if we don't do this all our computers will die and we'll be out of work” into a statement of profit and expense, but without that insight, the C-suite can't go forward. So for those times, here are points to consider in making that conversion from “we must do this” to “this is the bottom line impact.”What to Consider … [Read more...]