Economists have predicted that Singapore’s economy will grow by around 6% in 2011, exceeding previous expectations. It is important for enterprises to ensure that mission-critical infrastructure is well positioned to provide support throughout this period of growth as well as flexible enough to adapt to future requirements. The avenues available are varied and will vary depending on individual businesses’ needs. For some a focus on physical facility infrastructure may be a priority, for others virtualisation or cloud infrastructures may prove more suitable. The fundamental issue is ensuring maximum efficiency and effectiveness while keeping an eye on OpEx and CapEx.

DatacenterDynamics 2011 Singapore conference will draw together market leaders from across the data centre industry to discuss the latest developments in the sector. The programme of presentations, case studies and panel discussions will provide attendees with the opportunity to examine the latest technologies and how they can be effectively implemented.

In combination the three themes outlined below will provide end users with an informed discussion of the varied landscape of building/not building out their own data centre facilities, relying on third-party services, and with technologists who will set out how enterprises can retain direct control of infrastructure assets with the adoption of the latest software and IT advances to maximise bottom-line performance.

From site selection and construction through to cooling and power availability, and data centre automation, Design, Build, Operate sessions at DatacenterDynamics are must attend for any organisation intending to build a data centre or running existing facilities.

Not too long ago data centre facilities were designed for constant loads and steady availability, now they are dynamic. The transition from single tier, to multi tier to dynamic tier. Application, hardware and physical infrastructure are following this rule: from servers that power down, to distributed applications, even to variable frequency drive fans.

The focus now is on scalable and modular data centre design to reduce energy consumption. DatacenterDynamics  will demonstrate how to plan for and build data centres , taking into account all the component parts and their configuration.

Depending on the size of the enterprise, outsourcing is rarely an all or nothing proposition. The challenge for CIOs, CTOs and data centre management is to decide what it makes sense to outsource and what is so strategic that you must keep it in house, and how to optimise the management of owned data centre infrastructure with capabilities that are in the cloud, at a collocation provider, or with a managed services operation. 

Ultimately, the optimal solution for an in-house and outsourced data centre services mix is a function of likely utilisation rates of servers required to run applications, the capital cost of hardware and infrastructure, and the mission-critical nature of data storage, processing and dissemination. Any decision to outsource will require an analysis of the contractual obligations offered by third party providers in their service level agreements. 

Enterprises continually need to evaluate their data centre requirements and decide on how best to accommodate growth and the changing way in which business operates and uses IT. The efficiency of the facility is only half the equation – optimising all the systems that run within it is crucial, from processing to storage to network to application.