How to Expand Your Data Center Operations to Fit Your Operations

Every successful business faces this dilemma at one time or another: How do you expand capacity strategically — without overburdening your current staff and equipment and without busting your budget? For IT professionals, that question generally comes down to the complexities of data center capacity.

Generally, you have three choices when it comes to accommodating growth. They include shifting some capacity to the cloud; physically expanding the capacity of your current data center; and soliciting the services of a colocation data center. In some cases, you may consider a combination of those solutions.

Here’s a breakdown of your options:

Move some data to the cloud. Considered one of the most popular options for expanding data center capacity, hybrid cloud solutions are being embraced by a significant number of enterprise companies. After surveying 930 IT professionals, RightScale found that 82 percent of enterprises have a hybrid cloud strategy. That’s up from 74 percent in 2014.

Hybrid cloud solutions are an attractive option because of comparatively lower costs of expanding into a physical location. It also reduces the time it takes to expand capacity, enabling you to quickly move innovations into reality. However, some users of the cloud have concerns about downtime, limited control and security risks.

Expand your own data center. Building out your own capacity addresses the concerns about having total control of your own data center operations, as well as providing you the flexibility to building it to your specifications and establish your own security measures. However, the drawbacks include the expense, space and time it takes to build out additional IT capacity.

Build capacity through colocation. With the right colocation data center, you can build out capacity through pre-existing physical space that allows you to scale as needed. For these reasons, colocation is increasingly popular as part of a hybrid solution. The right colocation data center also provides state-of-the-equipment, including cooling and power, as well as security.

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Alex Carroll

Managing Member at Lifeline Data Centers

Alex, co-owner, is responsible for all real estate, construction and mission critical facilities: hardened buildings, power systems, cooling systems, fire suppression, and environmentals. Alex also manages relationships with the telecommunications providers and has an extensive background in IT infrastructure support, database administration and software design and development. Alex architected Lifeline’s proprietary GRCA system and is hands-on every day in the data center.