As leaders in state and local government begin their data center optimization journeys, it's important to start with the end in mind. By defining desired outcomes, leaders can keep projects on track, avoid waste, and unify their teams around a common goal. Although different agencies may have slightly different objectives, there are three outcomes that are important for virtually every organization: an enhanced customer experience, improved cost control, and more robust data integrity and security.
Through their partnership with OMNIA Partners, CDW•G offers IT solutions to reduce administrative workloads and integrates new products to meet the evolving needs of any business. With an effective data center optimization strategy in place, state and local agencies can expect to derive valuable benefits from their IT infrastructure.
An optimized data center can help governments provide more scalable digital services that meet their citizens’ needs. Automation tools are often extremely important in helping to deliver an improved experience, in part because they allow IT staffers to focus on solving citizens’ problems, rather than on the mundane IT maintenance tasks often associated with data center management.
By leveraging economies of scale and automation, government agencies can lower unit costs within the data center. And by reducing operational inefficiencies through monitoring and control tools, they can often save on operating costs as well. It is important to note that cost models may change as the result of a modernization effort (often from a CAPEX model to an OPEX model).
For instance, when Massachusetts moved from what the state’s CIO called a “hodgepodge” of government-owned data centers to a cloud-driven environment, the state saw new recurring costs for cloud resources. The state CIO noted that the model is sometimes more expensive than agencies are accustomed to — but that is because those agencies previously took an unsustainable “buy it once and forget about it” approach to data center infrastructure.
Data center optimization efforts often help agencies enhance their operational capabilities and eliminate the traditional challenges of data silos and data duplication. This is important for mapping out application interdependencies, improving performance, reducing storage costs and simplifying security.
An improved cybersecurity posture not only protects citizens’ data from hackers who want to steal this information and sell it on the dark web, but also can lead to improved physical safety. Public utilities, for instance, are top targets for malicious actors (including terrorists and hostile nation-states) who want to launch attacks on critical infrastructure.
The factors that contribute to a successful data center optimization strategy are important but ensuring that your data operations are sustainable is equally important to its success.
Many state and local governments face either explicit regulatory mandates or pressure from citizens to become more sustainable in their operations, and data centers are large consumers of energy. In addition to contributing to sustainability goals, making data centers more efficient can significantly cut down on operating expenses.
By leveraging CDW•G and OMNIA Partners through their cooperative contract, agencies can access key services and solutions:
Power and Cooling Services: CDW’s power and cooling experts can help state and local governments to identify inefficiencies in their existing environments and design a plan of action to reduce operating expenses, improve resiliency and make progress toward sustainability goals.
Hyperconverged Infrastructure: Because of its modular design, hyperconverged infrastructure can offer cloud-like scalability in an agency’s on-premises data center. HCI can also provide agencies with benefits of availability, flexibility and fast deployment.
Managed IT Services: CDW offers a wide array of services for virtually every aspect of data center optimization, including data services, security services, colocation services, managed cloud services and connectivity services. Depending on the engagement, CDW’s experts can deploy and manage solutions on behalf of agencies so that internal staff can attend to their day-to-day duties.
CDW•G realizes a true solutions provider must go beyond fulfilment. Impactful IT solutions require a vendor who understands customers’ needs and experiences. Leading with their Customer-Centric philosophy, CDW•G has structured their organization to align with the segments they serve.
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