3 Reasons why you shouldn’t Manage your own Data Centre

Digital transformation demands that organizations of all sizes focus less on the daily operations of maintaining IT infrastructure and more on the strategic role technology plays in differentiating the business in a competitive market place. While it’s tempting to build out your infrastructure as you grow, a managed data centre makes more economic sense.

Q9 Networks Data Centre

It’s tempting as a growing organization to add to your IT infrastructure, but in the long term a managed data centre is better bang for your buck. More importantly, it enables you to think more strategically about the role of technology in your digital transformation.

In fact, large Canadian enterprises are getting out the data centre business, according to IDC Canada.The State of the Canadian Data Centres, 2016 report found that leading companies in banking, transportation and retail have put the kibosh on building new data centres. It’s a global trend, in fact, as workloads have shifted from aging corporate data centres to third-party facilities over the past five years.

If running their own data centre doesn’t make sense for the big guys, small to mid-sized organizations should rethink their data centre strategy too.

You can’t get economies of Scale

In the case of data centres, bigger is better from a financial perspective, but most organizations can’t justify a big enough footprint – they don’t have the economies of scale on their own.

Realistically, at least 250,000 square feet or more of data centre space is necessary to get the necessary return on investment. This is achievable for a large enterprise, and more so a colocation facility, but not realistic for a small to mid-sized enterprise. And while IT staff often want ownership over their servers, they don’t have access to the bigger picture of what it is costing the company to run its data centre, including all the costs.

It’s hard to keep up with evolving Hardware and Networking

Advancements in networking, compute and storage are moving at a rapid pace, and keeping up with hardware refresh cycles requires a lot of time, money and expertise.

The evolution of enterprise storage is an excellent example: in less than five years, all-flash arrays have rapidly dropped in price to become an affordable option for primary storage, even for smaller enterprises. Meanwhile, software-defined networking (SDN) is well-suited to meet the dynamic scalability requirements of modern data centers and can reduce costs by leveraging commodity networking gear. However, it also requires a high level of expertise.

Figuring out what your networking, compute and storage needs are based your applications and data is time consuming. Add to the fact these three core elements of your infrastructure rarely have refresh cycles that are in sync, and keeping up with developments becomes a full-time job.

It’s resource Intensive

One of the main reasons large Canadian enterprises are shuttering their aging data centres is the capacity required to run a digital business today requires a great deal of power – it accounts for 70% to 80% of the overall cost of running the facility.

Managing all the physical aspects of a server and equipment room takes a lot of time and resources. Running your own data centre means you inevitably need to expand your IT team with specific expertise devoted to its management and upkeep.

Even if you do decide to maintain on-premise infrastructure, it doesn’t make sense to run it yourself. Consider finding a technology partner with the facilities management experience to take on the day-to-day maintenance and supervision it needs.

A company that’s already in the colocation business can easily take on tasks they are already doing in their own data centres, including:

  • Monitoring of hardware, networking and environmental equipment
  • Setting up new infrastructure and documenting infrastructure already in place
  • Cable and racking management
  • Setting up and managing access control
  • Audits, update and change management as required
  • Identify opportunities for better energy efficiency and green IT
  • Vendor management, including facilities and HVAC

Digital transformation demands that organizations of all sizes focus less on the daily operations of maintaining IT infrastructure and more on the strategic role technology plays in differentiating the business in a competitive market place. While it’s tempting to build out your infrastructure as you grow, a managed data centre makes more economic sense.

There are many ways artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning already impact cybersecurity. You can expect that trend to continue in 2024 – both as tools for data protection as well as a threat.

Balancing Cybersecurity Innovation Amid Evolving Threat Landscapes

Even as you implement AI and machine learning into your cybersecurity strategy through the adoption of tools like Security Orchestration, Automation, and Response (SOAR), Security Information and Event Management (SIEM) and Managed Detection and Response (MDR), so are threat actors. They will continue to update and evolve their own methodologies and tools to compromise their targets by applying AI and machine learning to how they use ransomware, malware and deepfakes.

With small and medium-sized businesses just much at risk as their large enterprise counterparts, SMBs must take advantage of AI and machine learning as mush possible. AI-directed attacks are expected to rise in 2024 in the form of deepfake technologies that make phishing and impersonation more effective, as well as evolving ransomware and malware.

Deepfake social engineering techniques

Deepfake technologies that leverage AI are especially worrisome, as they can create fake content that spurs employees and organizations to work against their best interests. Hackers can use deepfakes to create massive changes with serious financial consequences, including altering stock prices.

Deepfake social engineering techniques will only improve with the use of AI, increasing the likelihood of data breaches through unauthorized access to systems and more authentic looking phishing messages that are more personalized, and hence, more effective.

Countering Cyber Threats and Harnessing Innovation in 2024

If hackers are keen on leveraging AI and machine learning to defeat your cybersecurity, you must be ready to combat them in equal measure – just as AI and machine learning will create new challenges in 2024, they can also help you bolster your cybersecurity. While regulations are being developed to foster ethical use of AI, threat actors are not likely to follow them.

AI will also affect your cyber insurance as your providers will use it to assess your resilience against cyberattacks and adjust your premium payments accordingly. AI presents an opportunity for you to improve your cybersecurity to keep those insurance costs under control.

Conclusion

There’s a lot of doom being predicted around the growing use of AI and machine learning. And while it does pose a risk to your organization and its sensitive data, you can use it to bolster your cybersecurity even as threat actors leverage AI to up the ante. A managed service provider with a focus on security can help you use AI and machine learning to protect your organization as we head into 2024.

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