In today's rapidly evolving digital landscape, businesses are increasingly turning to digital transformation initiatives to stay competitive. One pivotal aspect of this transformation is the migration of data center workloads to colocation facilities, coupled with the process of right sizing these workloads. This strategic move not only enhances operational efficiency but also yields significant sustainability and financial rewards for organizations. Let's delve into how this approach can drive positive outcomes on both fronts.
Colocation facilities are designed with energy efficiency in mind, leveraging advanced cooling and power management systems. By migrating to these facilities, businesses can reduce their carbon footprint compared to traditional on-premises data centers. Most colocation facilities have announced goals to be carbon neutral by dates in the very near future. In fact, CyrusOne just moved up their date from 2040 to 2030. One of the key benefits of this focus on power efficiency, allows colocation providers to design for 100 kilowatts of power to every equipment rack. Certainly, renewable resources will play a big part of meeting carbon neutral goals.
Right sizing workloads ensures that computing resources are optimized, leading to reduced energy consumption per workload unit. When customers deploy virtualized workloads, vCPUs or virtualized CPUs are assigned. Here is where over provisioning can occur. Data storage can add to the problem as well. When customers buy traditional workloads, they usually buy all the storage a specific project requires, upfront. That could mean the up to 50% of the disks are just spinning for years and are not utilized. In this scenario a pay-as-you-grow strategy could be very beneficial.
We know from experience that embarking on a digital transformation can result in reaching sustainability goals, but another added benefit could be financial rewards. Colocation facilities offer economies of scale, allowing businesses to benefit from shared infrastructure and lower operational costs. This includes savings on power consumption, cooling, maintenance, physical security, and staffing.
The real question most companies will have is: “Where do I get started on this digital transformation journey?” It starts with HPE GreenLake.
HPE GreenLake, is a flexible “pay-as-you-grow” financial consumption model that lets you get the infrastructure you need, in a colocation facility, that is right sized for your workloads and requires no out of pocket expense to get started. Customers pay a monthly OpEx (or CapEx) payment just like they do when using a public cloud.
HPE GreenLake with COLO has over seventy cloud services—a popular choice for customers is HPE GreenLake Private Cloud Enterprise. And with HPE Data Center Advisory services to design and document the colocation facility, HPE has designed millions of square feet of data center facilities. HPE Advisory and Professional Services can install and configure everything and HPE GreenLake Managed Services (GMS) can operate and maintain the software, hardware, and firmware all the way to the workload.
The network can be built upon our fourth-generation HPE Aruba Networking AOS-CX 10000 switches with embedded DPU (data processing unit) technology, coupled with a wide array of compute and storage solutions.
All of this is good news so far, but customers want a cloud-like experience. A portal to log into to deploy new workloads, understand their costs, and capacities. That is what HPE GreenLake Cloud Platform (GLCP) does.
In March 2022, the SEC proposed the Enhancement and Standardization of Climate-Related Disclosures for Investors rule that would require U.S. publicly traded companies to disclose annually how their businesses are assessing, measuring and managing climate-related financial risks. With HPE GreenLake for Sustainable IT, you gain a holistic view of your IT asset energy profile including energy consumed, carbon emissions generated and your electricity costs.
The combination of these services and GLCP provides a “fourth” cloud, one that is private as opposed to public. It’s understood that not every workload can run in the public cloud due to a variety of reasons, but most of them can migrate to a private cloud. The end state for most customers will be a mix of public and private cloud. This is called a hybrid cloud strategy.
The convergence of digital transformation, colocation, and workload right sizing presents a compelling opportunity for organizations to enhance sustainability while unlocking financial benefits. By leveraging the energy-efficient infrastructure of colocation facilities and optimizing workload resources, businesses can not only reduce their environmental impact but also realize cost savings, improve operational agility, and drive innovation. As sustainability continues to gain prominence on the corporate agenda, embracing these strategies is not just a competitive advantage but a necessity for long-term success in today's business landscape.
