By Russell Senesac, data centre business development director at Schneider Electric

Just a decade or so ago, data centres were viewed almost as necessary evils; a capital expense needed to “keep the lights on”. They housed databases and kept e-mail up and running, serving as repositories.

The Internet changed all that simply by creating the capability (and demand) for 24/7 communication. Things have evolved from there with the onslaught of Big Data and the requirement to capture data points from customers, partners, competitors, and more.

Businesses need major processing power along with the ability to analyse what the data means in order to take action.

The next evolution will come from the Internet of Things (IOT) – more devices, more sensors, more data points – from machine-to-machine, self-driving cars, plants in your house automatically watering themselves to windows that have solar cell inside of them to create energy, all creating the next wave of Big Data.

As these things begin to automate everything else, businesses will need more capabilities, control and insight to succeed.
As such data centres have become the lifeblood of the business and IT plays a critical role. They create competitive differentiation through speed to market, speed to react, efficiencies and the ability to scale.

Here’s an example. Let’s say a healthcare company acquires a hospital. Theoretically, this provides the organisation with additional competencies and offerings that can distinguish it from the rest of the market. The extension adds revenue drivers; more doctors, nurses and beds, mean more patients and more income.

Being able to merge different and disparate critical backend systems like ERP and CRM and integrate the acquisition quickly to get the frontend moving, can only be done through the power of the data centre, it’s ability to scale and capabilities and strategy of IT.

Companies that don’t currently have data centres, probably never will. For those and smaller start ups to come, it often makes sense for them to take advantage of the cloud and co-location.

But for those companies that do have a data centre, it’s not too much of a stretch to say that without them, there would be no business.

MTC Data Center Technicians Paris

MTC Data Center Technicians Paris