Overview:

Designing and deploying a next-generation data center is a multidisciplinary
exercise. It’s key to start with a consistent long-term vision, plan well (and if
necessary, include multiple phases), and engage potential stakeholders and
educate them on the value proposition of the new data center. It’s also critical to
deploy key technologies, particularly virtualization and modular power, and
appropriately invest in outside support, including outsourcing or professional
services. Finally, recognize that team roles will change and emerge: system
administrators will grow to become “compute managers,” and storage
specialists and service delivery managers should focus on their core
competencies, all under the guidance and direction of a data-center architect.

Author(s): Johna Till Johnson, President and Senior Founding Partner

Keywords: Data centers, consolidation, blade
servers, outsourcing, infrastructure initiatives, on-demand, automated,
service-oriented, modular power distribution units (MDUs), storage,
virtualization, server virtualization, security, management automation,
service-level agreements, computing, energy, facilities, networking,
NDS servers, blade computing, IP infrastructure, modular power,
monitoring agents, networking hardware, SAN and NAS, VOIP.

Vendors mentioned: Dell, Hewlett Packard, Sun
Microsystems, BlueCat, Infoblox, APC-MGE, Eaton, Liebert, Avocent,
Raritan, Cisco, Extreme, F5, Force10, Foundry/Brocade, Juniper,
Riverbed, Brocade, EMC, Fujitsu, Hitachi, NetApp, Siemens, ShoreTel,
Citrix, Microsoft, VMWare, Avaya, Nortel, Mitel, Bruns-Pak, Constantin
Walsh-Lowe LLC, HP Data Center Services, Layer 1 Design, NetStructures
Inc., Seda Engineers, Syska Hennessy Group.

Read this Issue Paper: The 10 Commandments of Data Center Design

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