Nowadays, technology plays its role in managing everything in businesses. Meanwhile, you need to pay massive amounts because technology is not cheap. Data center costs are the major costs in any business. But the good news is that using artificial intelligence, alternative energy integration, and liquid cooling for data center infrastructure management can help maximize efficiency and trim the budget. 

One thing is clear when planning new construction; you can be hopeful that future data centers will be affordable and sustainable. But what can you do about existing facilities? Can you make them cost-efficient? The answer is yes; you can do it. Here we’ll share tips to stretch data center budget. 

5 Tips to Stretch Data Center Budget

Data center managers need to reduce operating costs and keep associated risks in data center environments to a minimum. Organizations can enjoy maximum uptime and reduce data center costs by taking these measures. So, without wasting time, let’s dive into the tips to help you save data center costs. 

1. Review Data Storage Options 

Nowadays, HDDs and Flash storage options are not as effective and practical as they were in the past. IoT-driven explosion for data storage is just beginning. But many organizations are still not following the best practices for IT infrastructure lifecycle management. 

Enterprises should reexamine what data they’re keeping, why they are keeping it, and for how long they will keep it.  The best approach is to purge data whenever possible because it can help save money on data storage. 

Organizations can consider cold storage options like tape systems for rarely accessed data. It significantly reduces the energy overhead that is associated with storage infrastructure management. By doing this, you can reduce data center costs and stretch the data center budget. 

2. Improve Energy Efficiency Through Hardware Acquisition 

It’s not possible for organizations to fully transition from HVAC to liquid cooling. But hardware acquisition can gradually help improve energy efficiency. 

• Set Energy Efficiency Targets

If you want to enhance energy efficiency, ensure that you review energy use for both idle and active states. It can help you find products that aren’t energy efficient. 

• Evaluate Innovative Products 

Liquid-level cooling at the server is the best alternative to HVAC. It will take massive investment upfront, but it can prove to be a cost-efficient option for the long term. 

• Incorporate Hardware Lifecycle Planning 

If you’re purchasing new hardware, you must determine does it justify the capital expenditure. Moreover, it’s important to find out efficiency gains by upgrading data center hardware components.  

3. Consider Different Support Options 

When organizations purchase new hardware, they get a support contract. It’s a good thing for deployment success. OEMs don’t offer new features when the product passes 2 to 3 years of its service life. As a result, the cost of support increases, and the value that customers get decreases. 

In contrast, third-party hardware maintenance and support providers offer more features and responsive support at half of the cost. More importantly, support contract management becomes more efficient. 

4. Be Wise and Extend Hardware Lifespan 

In all organizations, there are people with different mindsets. For example, conservative-minded people think that they should keep the hardware till their support period lasts, that is, 3 to 5 years. Some people are risk-takers, and they prefer to run hardware till it drops. But they don’t understand that hardware failure can result in downtime, which can result in financial loss. 

Nowadays, organizations get EOSL and post-warranty on almost all servers, networking hardware, and data storage options. Moreover, it helps organizations to check products that provide value. After identifying the risk status and warranty profiles of each asset, organizations can extract maximum ROI. More importantly, they don’t compromise reliability and security. 

5. Outsource Monitoring and Maintenance Tasks

Data centers are complex places. Therefore organizations try to have trained in-house teams for each task. By doing this, they pay massive staffing costs. In contrast, outsourcing can help organizations access experts on an as-needed basis. They don’t have to pay them part-time or full salaries. 

Tasks like data center optimization, monitoring, and maintenance can be handed off to third-party experts. As mentioned earlier, it can help you save more than half of the money that you spend on an in-house team. 

So, organizations should follow these tips to stretch data center budget.

Final Words

No doubt, technological innovations can help in data center architecture and practices, but many cost-saving and energy-efficiency opportunities lie in existing facilities that organizations ignore. A few of them are hardware selection, monitoring, maintenance, and support. By choosing the right products and support options, organizations can save data center costs. Moreover, enterprises should try the above-mentioned tips to stretch your data center budget.