In 2014 worldwide server shipments rose by 2.2%, a modest but noticeable rise it came off the back of a particularly strong fourth quarter and a stellar year for market leader HP and its rivals. Asked what the key factor may have been to see this bump in interest, Stephen Kelly, systems group manager for IBM Ireland focused on both “resilience and performance” as being critical in influencing enterprise spend.
“Resilience is a key factor and this is because of consumer perspectives and demands. Consumers today expect brands to perform in a world that is now 24/7, 365 days per year, available online and always on. Not being available to consumers all the time, can lead to brand damage and reputation damage,” said Kelly.
Businesses need to be able to access data in real-time and to analyse that data and react to meet their consumers. They also need to share that information with their business to support the demands for their products and services. If servers cannot perform to meet resilience and performance at these new levels of demand then your servers are creating issues across all levels of your business, Stephen Kelly, IBM
This, he added, has become inescapable due to social media platforms where “consumers can communicate about your brand” anytime, day or night across the world. As a result, the IBM man said, performance must become a key factor as “you need to manage your business delivery to meet your consumer demands”.
The IBM man said that “Businesses therefore need to be able to access data in real-time and to analyse that data and react to meet their consumers. They also need to share that information with their business to support the demands for their products and services. If servers cannot perform to meet resilience and performance at these new levels of demand then your servers are creating issues across all levels of your business.”
Support services
For Martin Sinnott, converged infrastructure manager at Dell, support services have been a key factor in server investment of late, noting that his company has “put much investment in to ensure the correct level of proactive support is available on all the server range to ensure uptime and service availability.”
The second key factor in making a decision surrounding server investment for Sinnott is management tools to ensure that a company’s IT administrators “have full access” to the data and solutions on offer, while also coming with the added bonus of alert systems “built into the server as standard both from onsite and also mobile enabled.”
David Kinsella, chief technology officer with Datapac said that for his money, choosing a server actually “comes down to five key requirements”. Top of the list, he said, “will always be the computer requirements or needs of the applications; for example how much CPU, RAM, network and disk space are required for your business?”
Subscribers 0
Fans 0
Followers 0
Followers