The management of today’s data centers is becoming increasingly complex. Data center managers are charged with optimizing resources and minimizing capital-intensive upgrades, at the same time they are grappling with how best to incorporate new technologies like cloud computing, virtualisation and new data storage applications. Among other forces data center managers need to address include the drive to lower the total cost of ownership (TCO), while increasing quality of service; energy provisioning and consumption in a “green IT” era; increasingly stringent information security requirements; data center design efficiency; business continuity; and the IT Infrastructure Library (ITIL).
The research compiled provides an overview of the fundamental elements of data center management in the context of a multi-customer environment. While this purview is generally characteristic of outsource data center providers, the practice is also increasingly similar within insourced counterparts which provide services to multiple internal customers in a best practice, shared services organization model.