5 signs it might be time to upgrade your servers

Written by Zones | Mar 26, 2020 12:00:00 PM

Among many IT decision-makers in the business world today, there’s a shared understanding that data center transformation should be a priority. With a streamlined data center, your people have the capability to access the files they need quickly and tackle every challenge in front of them at maximum efficiency. But at the same time, revamping your data center is easy to put off. Many executives think they can get away with letting the project slide for another year – after all, aren’t their current environments working fine, more or less?

Yes and no, it turns out. In many cases, companies can survive simply by sticking with the environment they have today. It might be costing them money, though. Research from IDC revealed that when companies hold off on server upgrade projects, they experience a 39% drop in server performance on average, along with a 148% increase in administration costs. This makes intuitive sense – the older your servers are, the more prone they are to breaking down.

So where’s your breaking point? How do you know when it’s definitively time to upgrade your company’s data infrastructure? We’ve got five warning signs you should look for.

Maintenance costs are breaking the bank. Server performance tends to erode by about 14% per year, and as that happens, maintenance becomes more costly. At a certain point, it becomes more expensive to maintain your current system than to simply replace it.
You need better asset management. Modern data center systems come with sophisticated asset management systems built in, including tools for workload tracking and performance analysis. As your business grows, these resources can ensure you continue to manage IT optimally.
Performance issues are slowing you down. If your current data center has become so bogged down that it’s hurting your employees’ ability to get work done, then you know it’s time to make a change. A new system – especially if it’s one with a greater virtual machine density – is sure to boost performance back up to acceptable levels.
Reliability becomes a concern. The longer your data center goes without a refresh, the more likely outages become. If your company is like most, you aren’t capable of surviving a prolonged stretch of data center downtime. The easiest way to avoid this problem is to invest in a new system before things get out of hand.
Your warranty is running out. Most data centers come with service contracts that expire after three to five years. If you’re currently operating on an expiring deal, you may want to consider making a change next time rather than re-upping with your current provider.

If you consider all of the above factors and decide that indeed, it’s time to switch, then we’re here to help. At Zones, we’re proud to have a partnership with Dell EMC, which puts us in prime position to deliver new data center infrastructures to clients who need them. Dell’s Server Refresh using PowerEdge technology is designed to give companies an environment that’s automated, secure, and scalable, and we have the expertise to get yours up and running quickly.

Want the details on how our partnership with Dell EMC can benefit your business? We’re happy to walk you through it.

Learn more »

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