RECAP | ROUNDTABLE | Portfolio Level Development of Management Structures: Data Centers Portfolio Management

This Roundtable: Portfolio Level Development of Management Structures: Data Centers Portfolio Management, looks at how as a company expands their data center sites and IT footprint, portfolio management becomes vitally important in order to standardize, gain efficiencies, and achieve consistency in operations.
The Uptime Institute Consultant leading the discussion – Fred Dickerman, Senior Vice President – Management Services –started the discussion with a look at “The Evolution of IT Environments”. 30 years ago, it was data centers and mainframe computers and now it is server environments, micro data centers and clouds. Enterprises have an increasing number of choices as to where to put their IT. So, as they choose to spread the IT out to create an “IT Estate” questions of control, management, economics, and environmental sustainability become increasing important and more challenging to manage. And the cloud is not “the answer” a quick look at the results of the recent annual survey show us that movement to the cloud is still slow, as there are still concerns over control and safety.
To open the discussion Fred invited the participants to share the progress their organisation are making with regards to developing Portfolio Strategy. One Financial Services member shared that there is currently a disconnect between IT and the Data Center function, and that his organisation is currently planning on moving entirely to the cloud. Echoing the findings of the annual survey this was not thought to be a wise idea, especially with regards to the important and sensitive financial transactions of their customers. A Middle Eastern participant said that building new facilities to established standards, in their case Tier Certification, helps them to expand successfully and quickly. Their challenges are to ensure they are equipped with the latest technology in line with the global market. As they are expanding, they are finding that the varying sizes of their data centers pose a challenge as well, but again using benchmarking and standards they can create uniformity across their staffing and maintenance procedures. As an organisation they are tackling the environmental sustainability topic by switching to solar panels and moving off the grid, with a higher-level business strategic plan to ensure there is no risk to the resiliency of the facility, and to reassure customers. A member from a large global colocation organisation backed up many of the points made. There is an assertion that when it comes to Portfolio Management one challenge is that no two datacenters are the same, and this is especially so if those data centers are spread globally. There will be different staffing and maintenance regulations to adhere to and consider. When acquiring an existing facility to add to their portfolio success is more certain if the previous management is able to give the new owners/operators the correct level of information around maintenance and training so that the new operations team can hit the ground running. Essentially there is no “out of the box” management package that will work for all sites.
Fred agreed wholehearted with everything that had been said so far, citing it as a perfect description of “Management vs Governance” – while 1 or two facilities can be “managed”, a portfolio requires “governance” strategies, and this requires standards that can maintain consistency but also have the flexibility to meet different environmental, regulatory, and operational challenges.
To conclude – it is important to create alignment across the portfolio, to communicate clearly what the standards are and developing them in a way that can be adapted successfully at each facility.