I data center today are one of the most important assets of companies. This is where the most valuable data is stored and business apps run, and it is easy to understand their centrality in the business economy. The cloud has not replaced them , on the contrary, it has made them even more fundamental and – in some ways – flexible . Until a few years ago the data center contained all the digital assets of a company, but things have changed radically and first the cloud and now, in constant growth, the edge . The revolution of industry 4.0 and the spread of the IoT in the industrial sector have in fact made it necessary to process data where it is generated , drastically lowering latencies. The spread of 5G can only further accelerate this trend.

The modern data center

In light of the above, it is clear that when we talk about data centers, we are not referring to a single type of structure. There are the classic ones, huge rooms inside which there are dozens, if not hundreds, of rack cabinets, but there is no shortage of compact size data centers, usually installed in peripheral offices and factories: these do not manage all the corporate data assets, but they usually share information with the central ones and with the cloud, delivering the computing power necessary for applications running on the edge of the infrastructure.

Vertiv and the concept of digital reach

This summer, in June, Vertiv participated in the forum Future of Infrastructure 2020 , organized by IDC . The main theme of the event was the concept of d igital reach , the ability to manage digital services wherever needed. A theme made even more topical by the health emergency due to Covid – 19. As easily understood, the classic data center is not enough to guarantee the digital reach and it is necessary to review the corporate infrastructure, leveraging the edge systems .

During the IDC forum, Vertiv moderated a Virtual Focus Group in which the company’s speakers, together with those of IDC, met with representatives of the main operators of the sector, addressing the data center topic in a less technical and more holistic way, thinking about management strategies and practices . The focus was on the transformation of the corporate data center, which is becoming more and more fluid, with resources scattered across the data center, cloud and edge .

During the discussion a series of criticalities experienced by companies emerged, in particular the difficulty of adapting the classic logic of the IT world to a new reality. For a successful transformation, according to Vertiv it is in fact necessary to change not only the technological equipment, but also the logic and – consequently – the KPIs and the processes for measuring effectiveness and productivity. In short, a change in leadership management is needed, a process that is not simple, as confirmed by the participants, who expressed the need to be supported in bringing their vision closer to those of business managers, so as to set up new well-founded metrics on business results.

The Focus Group highlighted an important aspect: companies that have made progress in interpreting their role in a changing society in a more modern way and the foundations have been laid for an evolution of the data center culture.

Further information on what emerged from the focus group discussion and on the future of data centers is available in the white paper Future of Infrastructure : Challenges and Opportunities in Developing a Data Center Culture , free to download.

Vertiv’s offering for data centers

Vertiv is a leading provider of data center solutions and services. Known above all for its UPS – uninterruptible power supplies that guarantee power to servers even in the event of momentary blackouts – the company also manufactures racks and cooling solutions, as well as complete modular and transportable data centers, designed for edge computing scenarios: a factory, for example, but also logistics and cultivation centers built with the criteria of agriculture 4.0 and applications in the Oil & Gas sector. The solutions SmartMod are prefabricated buildings made as pre-assembled modules, so as to facilitate their transport and installation. In addition to edge computing applications, SmartMods can also be used to scale the computing power of an existing data center in man