Align Blog

Data Center Inventory is More Important than Ever

Written by Align | Sep, 05, 2019

Do you know what equipment is in your data center?
Would you be able to find a device if there was an issue?
Do you have servers still turned on and not being used?
Do you know how outdated your hardware is?

Data center infrastructure supports all of your businesses.

If you cannot answer any one of these questions, you may be on the edge of a significant failure or you are wasting crucial operational expenses.

Today's blog post examines the benefits of performing a data center physical inventory. This all-important exercise helps your team receive real-time transparency on the current state and guides decision making. Any moves or changes are performed efficiently, strategically and without risk.

If your firm is ready to modernize and scale down its data center operations, acquire organizations, take on more infrastructure, or simply want to be more strategic with your data center portfolio, now is the time to understand what you have and where it is located.

A physical inventory of your data centers can provide powerful insight into assets; data which arms you with complete and real-time details of your firm’s current IT environment. There are cases where 20% of your devices could be powered off, no longer of use to you, reducing the consumption of power and space in your cabinets, preventing you from consolidating and saving crucial resources.

Leveraging a specialized team on data center inventories will speed up the process.

This will help you to make this information actionable and prepare your firm for other digital initiatives going forward. It’s an affordable, non-intrusive initiative with a quick turnaround that provides valuable information. When the physical inventory is complete, the data is consumable into your CMDB or DCIM software programs and has cabinet elevations.

From here, you are ready to analyze what exactly is living in your data center, where it’s located and your actual capacity. 

You will be able to determine which devices are end of life that either need to be refreshed or decommissioned. You can make data-driven decisions that will improve your overall operations and mitigate the risk of change.

In addition to the operational improvements, the inventory information will support many transformative IT initiatives including data center consolidations and the use of cloud solutions. Are you ready to discovery what’s in your environment? Let’s start a conversation and build the right approach that’s best for you.