Is the in-house data center a thing of the past?

IT managers are facing several challenges. The first is to lay the groundwork for a modern, data-driven company by building new platforms and driving cloud adoption. But they also need to reduce costs in the midst of increasing demands for availability and security. This is no easy task when supply chains are at a standstill, skilled workers are scarce and the focus is suddenly shifting to secure energy supply for the company’s facilities due to energy shortages. So which solutions can they turn to?  

The 2023 Swiss IT Study clearly shows that outsourcing to external data centers is set to increase significantly, with 23.4 percent of companies having already outsourced their infrastructure. In the next five years, another 20.8 percent plan to move their server rooms to external data centers and dismantle their in-house centers.  

What’s behind the outsourcing trend? 

Many data centers are outdated. Modernization steps that would be necessary for greater security, availability and energy efficiency are not feasible during ongoing operation. They are also economically unprofitable, as workloads are increasingly being shifted to the cloud. This in turn reduces the need for servers and thus the space required on the company’s premises, which usually cannot be reduced in a hurry anyway and still generates the same expenses for maintenance and operation. As a result, running an in-house data center is becoming increasingly uneconomical. 
 

Modern data centers, on the other hand, offer comprehensive security, high availability and greater cost efficiency, with sustainability always at the forefront. Significantly higher energy efficiency reduces energy consumption and, consequently, costs.