We know that managing a data center seems like a never ending task. As soon as you’ve got one part optimized and locked down, something “interesting” happens elsewhere in the infrastructure and you’re back to fighting fires! Here at Red8,. We want to take the frustration out of data center management, so you can breathe easy, take a step back, and enjoy your work.
That’s why we put together this checklist, to help you stay on top of your data center storage needs, and to make you smile when you walk into that chilly server room. We’ve kept these checklist items short, sweet, and practical, and if you want any more information, we’d be happy to help. Connect with us here.
Do the Medium- to Long-Term Needs of Your Business Requires a Different Data Center Approach?
Look at the strategic and tactical plans for your business over the next one to five years and identify major initiatives, projects, marketplace expansions. Think about whether your existing data center will support what’s coming down the pipe.
Are You Completely Aligned with Short-Term Business Growth Plans?
In addition to longer-term plans, it’s also vital to know what’s happening next week or next month. Make sure you’re closely aligned with sales, marketing, and operations so you can understand likely future demands and that you have enough capacity to support an increase in customers, products, or other factors.
Have You Considered The Cost, Effectiveness, and Efficiency of Other Data Center Solutions?
With the availability, on-demand pricing structure, and other benefits of cloud infrastructure, cloud services could meet your data center and storage needs. Even if you don’t want to fully migrate to the cloud, it could provide you with some useful contingency and flexibility. Here at Red8, we’ve got the consulting and expertise you need to help make an informed choice.
Are You in the Consulting and Feedback Loop for Demand and Capacity Planning?
Demand and capacity are two of the most vital disciplines for good data center and storage management. Make sure you’re consulted and informed on demand and capacity findings, and that you have enough lead time to get new storage in place.
Do You Understand How Business Critical Applications Map to Your Data Center?
Your business probably relies on a handful of critical business applications to run most of its services and provide products to customers. You need to map those applications and operations back to specific assets in your data center. You can then setup extra monitoring, management, and contingency on those assets to ensure the availability and responsiveness of the applications.
Do You Have the Right Monitoring and Management Tools for Your Data Center?
You never want the first sign of a data center problem to be when angry stakeholders are calling you and demanding answers! Instead, make sure that all your monitoring and management tools are centralized with appropriate thresholds and alerts so you get early sight of risks and can mitigate them before they manifest.
Do You Make Changes as a Result of Problem Management Findings?
Problem management identifies the root causes and mitigating actions behind IT incidents in your organization. If problems and incidents occur as a result of issues in the data center, make sure you have the right actions and resources to resolve the underlying cause and prevent recurrence.
Have You Involved Security Management in Your Data Center Design and Operations?
Data security is more important than ever across all your storage, infrastructure, and applications. Make sure you work closely with the IT security team, and select vendors that prioritize best-in-class security best practice and encryption.
Do You Have the Right Backup, Retention, and Recovery Plans?
No-one wants the worst to happen, but if it does, make sure you’re prepared Choose a data center design and implementation that allows you to mirror, snapshot, or incrementally update production data. That way, you can quickly recover if you experience a data center outage.
We recommend going through this review list on a quarterly basis to make sure everything is still working as intended, and that you’re prepared for the future. We understand that data center management can be complex, so the Red8 team is here to assist with all of your questions and needs. Contact us today!
