It wouldn’t be wrong to call data centers the backbone of the internet. The articles you read, the videos you watch, and the applications you use all reside somewhere in a data center. And these data centers are expensive to run.
Although data center spending is expected to reach a record $222 billion in 2023, the economic atmosphere isn’t the most favorable for IT businesses. That may make cutting corners inevitable.
So how do you reduce the cost of running a data center?
There are several viable strategies enterprises with small or large data centers can embrace to reduce their costs immediately and in the long run. The money you save from running the data center can help meet the spending thresholds and avoid making more consequential cost-cutting measures like layoffs.
In this article, we will discuss the following:
- How to expand equipment life beyond EOSL.
- How to reassess sizing.
- How to move the extra load to colocation or cloud.
- How to buy used equipment.
- How to adopt software-defined storage.
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Here are the top five ways to reduce costs for your data center for 2023:
1. Expand Equipment Life Beyond EOSL With Maintenance
One of the significant expenditures for data centers is refreshing equipment.
Every year, a bunch of servers, arrays, routers, and other critical or non-critical equipment reaches the end of service life (EOSL), where the original equipment manufacturer (OEM) ceases support for the device. Depending on the data center's size, replacing this equipment can cost anywhere from a few thousand to hundreds of thousands of dollars.
It doesn’t help that OEMs are increasingly making EOSL terms shorter, pushing buyers to refresh earlier than they used to 10 years ago.
EOSL isn’t necessarily a death sentence for equipment, as the devices still function in many cases. But the lack of support from the vendor drives data centers to replace because they can’t risk downtime at the behest of no OEM support.
Enter third-party maintenance (TPM) providers that can fill this gap and help you expand the life of your equipment well beyond the official EOSL. While TPM doesn’t mean you won’t need to refresh your equipment, it only extends that time, which in the long run, does save you a lot of money.
OneCall from PivIT is designed to help data centers have maintenance for equipment that has reached EOSL and can be considered legacy. With OneCall, data centers can use the cost-effective hybrid maintenance approach, combining OEM and TPM contracts to get the most value.
2. Reassess Sizing
Chances are that your data center isn’t utilizing 100 percent of the infrastructure. This is likely because you planned a higher capacity to make room for growth, which is fine. However, all those unutilized resources are running up the power bill.
Plus, your equipment performs best at its peak when it’s utilized 100 percent. So if you still have significant unused infrastructure, it’s time to reassess the equipment sizing and capacity planning.
With today’s analytical tools, predicting load peaks and preparing infrastructure accordingly is far more manageable. Step back and use your data to see your infrastructure's usage level over the past months. Underutilized resources provide a feasible opportunity to cut costs.
If you can shut down some of the equipment, you should do so to save running costs.
On the other hand, selling it's a good idea if the equipment is just extra and you know it wouldn’t get used anytime soon.
3. Move Extra Load to Colocation or Cloud
Data centers with on-premise infrastructure can only grow so much if they have physical space limitations. As opposed to underutilized infrastructure, if your equipment is at max capacity and needs to expand, consider colocation services or the cloud.
Both colocation and cloud may be cheaper than investing in newer space and filling it with equipment to meet the growing demand. Now, it’s at your discretion whether colocation is more feasible for your data center or the cloud.
With colocation, you maintain ownership of the equipment, but somebody else runs and maintains it for you at their location. With the cloud, you don’t even need to buy equipment.
You’ll create a hybrid data center with both on-premise and cloud infrastructure, an efficient way to manage growing loads. According to a Flexera survey, 80 percent of organizations already use the hybrid cloud.
4. Buy Used Equipment
A cheaper and, more importantly, greener way to reduce the cost of acquiring equipment for your data center is to go with pre-owned equipment. Used equipment, particularly servers, can bring down your bottom line.
Yes, there may be a trade-off in performance, as pre-owned servers may not be as fast or optimized as something new. Nevertheless, a pre-owned server can be a feasible solution in certain situations.
For instance, a pre-owned server would be the most economical option if you're looking to increase capacity temporarily. Similarly, for non-critical operations, you can make do with legacy equipment. It comes down to the importance of the equipment in question.
PivIT specializes in hardware procurement, and in addition to sourcing top-of-the-line new equipment from major OEMs, it also offers certified, refurbished legacy servers. You can find servers at significant markdowns with several years of reliable service. And you can back them with maintenance through OneCall.
5. Adopt Software-Defined Storage
One way to reduce cost is to optimize the performance of your data center. In this regard, you can use software-defined storage (SDS) to optimize storage arrays. It’s an initial investment that may not show cost savings almost immediately, but it will in the long run when it reduces the need to expand storage infrastructure frequently.
With software at the helm of storage management, arrays become efficient. The software uses the storage as and when they need it.
This initiative is ideal for data centers that support hyperscaling, data-intensive applications (for example, those using machine learning).
SDS is highly available, which results in overall performance improvements for the data center. Traditionally, you’d have to spend on increasing storage capacity for your data to be highly available. With SDS, you can minimize that expenditure and efficiently utilize what you already have.
SDS can bring your data center one step closer to becoming a software-defined data center, which is what the future is all about.
Save Money With PivIT!
PivIT helps data centers build reliable infrastructure, whether it’s through procurement, maintenance, or other professional services designed to create convenience and flexibility.
The year 2023 is projected to be challenging, with long lead times and rising operational costs in many parts of the world. It’s a difficult situation, especially for organizations with a global footprint. However, cutting costs without compromising performance and reliability is very much possible.
Take time to reassess your hardware needs and decide whether you want to extend equipment beyond EOSL, buy used equipment, or replace it with the latest.
Simultaneously, adopt cost-effective technologies to leverage the full potential of your equipment.
It’s also recommended to look into ways to control energy wastage in your data center. Something as simple as better airflow for cooling can bring your costs down. Such small changes can significantly reduce costs and positively impact you by reducing your carbon footprint.
Whatever route you take, PivIT can be your partner!
