NEXTDC : Partners stepping up to the Hybrid IT and data management plate

By Steve Martin, Head of Channels

We know data is at the heart of everything driving society - commerce, research, lifestyle, health and well-being, the list goes on. The value of data continues to rise at an extraordinary rate. So too do challenges, complexities and risks associated with securing it.

For this reason, it's never been more important for organisations to have the right people, partners and tools in place to both safeguard data and extract full value from Hybrid IT investments.

What do I mean by that? You wouldn't park a Maserati 5000GT on the street, nor would you drink Macallan Number 263 scotch from a plastic cup. So, it begs the question; "would you support your most strategic IT assets with anything but the safest and most trusted infrastructure and strategic partners?".

Partners serve and protect

Your data is worth nothing if it isn't captured, safely stored and securely accessible when you need it, from wherever you are. Without this, the value of data deteriorates. It's service providers who are charged with the challenge of enabling IT's full potential.

Partnering strategically becomes an ever more critical success factor in a disrupted world. There are three core IT objectives partners play as digital transformation morphs and evolves.

1. Availability of data

In a data economy, downtime is simply unacceptable. Failure to access systems and data impacts the bottom line, from lost productivity to revenue and reputation.

The best way to create peace-of-mind and stay focused on immediate business requirements is to operate on digital infrastructure promising 100% uptime.

Server closets and customised spaces in office buildings built for humans, simply cannot provide the reliability necessary to manage exponential growth in dependence on data availability.

This is where IT services providers play an integral role in availability metrics. They and the strategic partners they align themselves to become critical to delivering the true fault tolerance and redundancy that provides the assurance organisations need for business continuity.

1. Security and sovereignty of data

Data storage, security and sovereignty are critical issues today. It must be secured against unauthorised access and retained on sovereign soil. The onus is on organisations to ensure data held is kept onshore.

The uptick and level of sophistication behind cyber-attacks is quite staggering. And, our globalised economy means that transactional, personal and IP information is more prone to being shared across internationally geo-diverse infrastructure and networks.

It's no longer sufficient to just trust your data is secure in its cloud location. Ensuring it's held within a sovereign ecosystem that are endorsed as delivering the highest levels of Government certified security is a pre-requisite.

Alleviating the pain of mapping and managing network topologies for compliance purposes has value to customers. If your infrastructure is wholly within an interconnected data centre platform that's certified strategic by the Australian Government, you are facilitating data sovereignty by default. Improved security and reduced latency through direct, private interconnection to sovereign cloud zones is a bonus.

1. Flexibility and agility

Business continuity, growth and innovation all depend upon reducing time to market on new initiatives and being able to pivot quickly in the face of change. You need flexible infrastructure that's rigorously secured, yet scales without friction.

Embedding flexibility and agility at the core of the infrastructure platform is key to staying relevant in the face of constant disruption.

Nor should they be dependent on large new capital allocations for the procurement of security, processing power, storage and network assets.

Cloud and other as-a-Service infrastructure delivery models allow for perpetual rightsizing of environments with options to change quickly. For example, observe how many organisations are rethinking their infrastructure architecture in the face of the changing workplace.

Solutions that help customers take the guesswork out of predicting future needs and overcapitalisation are of huge value to their customers at present.

The bottom line

The digital playground we participate in every day is dynamic. Fixed and immovable services and solutions simply cannot mobilise organisations to take advantage of constant environmental shifts happening around us.

Dynamic, Pay-as-you-go service delivery models represent the future of digital transformation. Question is, are your equipped to play?

Reach out to NEXTDC if you want to better understand the opportunities to build the highly available, secure and sovereign data services customers need to stay relevant in the digital economy.