Covid turns the spotlight on ‘Lights-Out’ Data Center

Data centers are the backbone of today’s Digital Economy. By forcing people to work from home, the COVID-19 crisis has forced enterprises to rethink how they access and manage their data centers too. Lights-out or unmanned data centers became more critical in such scenarios.

Anjani Kommisetti, Country Manager- India & SAARC, Raritan & ServerTech explains how Data Center Infrastructure Management (DCIM) helped enterprises emerge from the crisis and now as the scramble for digital transformation thrust upon us by the pandemic begins to subside, why they must consider investing heavily in the remote data center management capabilities. Excerpt:

‘Lights-Out’ data centers, remote management become critical during Covid

A lights-out data center reduces the number of physical visits to the data center. Controlling physical visits brings a lot of advantages in various areas such as reducing human errors, increasing security, optimizing resources, etc. This also helps to save energy by keeping the data center dark and climate-controlled.

When a large number of people have access to a data center, the chances of a cable being knocked loose, a power cord being stepped on or a variety of other minor mishaps increase, causing IT administrators unnecessary nightmares. It is difficult for IT expertise to be available at multiple places considering the cost of resources to manage the IT infrastructure.

Therefore, remote infrastructure management tools like KVM over IP, Serial over IP, Intelligent PDU, environmental sensors, asset management, smart locks, and DCIM tools bring in capabilities to manage the equipment configurations and troubleshoot remotely from anywhere.

Supporting the growing data center market requirements

Digital traffic processing in the last two years has increased considerably. The infrastructure backbone of data centers needs to be strengthened for that. Efficient data center designs are imperative in order to achieve efficiency, performance, and enhance customer experience. Establishing DC Parks would enable more customer-related data processing.

IT will need to match up the hybrid requirements for companies to operate successfully in the future, without being disrupted again by unforeseen happenstance. New technologies, new designs, how AI can be harnessed for better agility should now take center stage in CIO/CTO discussions.

The online shift occurred quickly but a large number of people did not realize how to use the technology without compromising the security. This increased the instances of cyberattacks, fraud, and violation of online security. That was the storm; now let’s prepare for the calm.

Anjani Kommisetti, Country Manager- India & SAARC, Raritan & ServerTech