It’s happened—your data center equipment has finally hit the death spiral. You know, the point of no return. It’s dusty. It’s slow. It’s no longer capable of the speeds and storage it used to be. Or maybe your business h
as just expanded too much for the archaic history museum you’re currently operating on. So, what do you do?
Don’t panic—this is something every business has experienced or will experience at some point. Trust me, I know it’s not a fun thing to spend your money on, but it’s a necessity. And speaking of necessities, when “rebuilding” or updating your data center, there are some specific things you should keep in mind.
Cyber resilience
This is your ability to always deliver the intended outcome, especially in the face of cyberattacks. This is protecting your infrastructure, business processes, and everything in between to ensure your business is always operational as well as minimally impacted should there be external factors trying to disrupt your flow. The best way to do that is to invest in some very strong cybersecurity. Of course, Ingram Micro can help you build that into your solution offering. That will look different for everyone, but it’s an important first step when considering a new or restructured data center build.
Data protection
Hand in hand with security, protecting your data is imperative. Beyond just protecting your data, ensuring it is always accessible, even when there are offline periods during the transition, is essential.
My father works in hospital IT—he had to do an Epic transition on an active hospital during a merger with antiquated infrastructural equipment. Talk about a stressful situation. Somehow, he managed to keep the hospital and the acquiring facilities up and operational while simultaneously preparing the new equipment and adding a new EMR to the system. All the while, protecting the data—both the operational data and patient data—was of utmost importance.
Backup and recovery
You just never know what’s going to happen. Bad weather, hackers, power outages, natural disasters—your entire local system could be wiped out. It’s a vital step in today’s environment to ensure you have a ready and steady backup and recovery solution.
Not to be dramatic, but this weather season has already been wild, and more is predicted to come. In fact, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration has already recorded almost 1,500 tornadoes to date, and is forecasting between 8-13 hurricanes—including up to 7 potentially major hurricanes.
There’s no better time to lean into the safe side of ensuring all businesses have a solid backup and recovery plan.
Business continuity
Along with backup and recovery, business continuity is a bird of the same feather. Once disaster has hit, you have to have a plan to keep things operational. Implementing risk management methods and procedures with business continuity planning helps mitigate the likelihood of disruptions and restore normal operations as quickly and efficiently as possible. It’s not a matter of if, but when. Always be prepared for the worst case scenario so you don’t end up as a cautionary tale.
The transition from old to new infrastructure is totally possible for any business―including vital ones like hospitals, governments and even educational institutions during finals week. You shouldn’t be afraid to take on the project—especially now that you have a little checklist. And, as always, Technically IT is here to help.
I’ll leave you with some advice from my father: Make a blueprint of what you have and physically where it’s at. Then, make a list of everything you need. Ask everyone what systems and technology they need to be successful in their roles. Then, build your infrastructure based on that.
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