Virtual Data Centre

While content may be king online, data is definitely king when it comes to companies. Data is the currency that helps with a wide variety of tasks and it is the companies that understand how to best manage and store their data that are seeing the most success in their industry.

What is a virtual data centre?

The virtual data centre has become an important tool that more and more Canadian companies are considering implementing into their operations. Commonly referred to by the acronym VDC, virtual data centres are common offered as infrastructure as a service (IaaS) using cloud storage, hosting and application technology.

Rather than being offered in a physical form, virtual data centres and its infrastructure are provided completely online and can be deployed in a number of formats. Depending on your company’s preference, you can host your VDC on private, public or a hybrid cloud computing model. In this sense, the virtual data centre solution to house data is flexible and can be configured to meet your specific information needs.

Virtual data centre functionality

Virtual data centres are being used by more and more companies because of their high level of functionality and their increasing capability to be fully automated. Here is some of the core functionality of VDCs:

• Monitoring: Data can be analyzed to ensure that it is aligned with business policy and protocols.
  
• Management capabilities: Virtual data centres often include operational management capabilities that are either semi or fully automated.
  
• Resource management: These tools allow companies to efficiently allocate resources and map relationships and develop insights. It also can assist administrators with the management of storage, resources, and other tools.
  
• Support: Many systems have self-support capabilities that allow then to adjust settings and parameters to control data centre behaviour.
  
• Mapping: systems have the ability to categorize, tag, and map similar elements to draw inferences about their relationships to one another.
  
• System intelligence: VDC software has the ability to turn collected data into insights that can be used to better manage resource and make the system more efficient.

Virtual data centre and company IT requirements

When it comes to virtual data centres, there is always concern from companies about how they will address their IT requirements. Here is how VDCs meet the common IT requirements:

• Security: VDCs come with comprehensive security packages that ensure that your data is secure.
  
• Integration: VDCs can be used to easily expand your online presence or to develop your internal network using common networking technologies.
  
• Compliance: Access and control of data can be configured to meet your specific needs.
  
• Architecture: Virtual data centres use technology that ensures the architecture of your system can evolve as new strategies emerge.
  
• Connectivity: Virtual Data centres experience a minimum of 99% uptime from most providers, ensuring that companies have extensive access to their data when they need it.
  
•   Disaster recovery: Data centres offer backup, disaster recovery, and redundant data services to ensure your data is protected if anything were to happen.

Steps for implementation

There are five main steps involved with implementing a data centre into your organization. They are:

1.  Understand your internal data needs
   
2.  Outline the capabilities that are required. What standard and customer options are needed?
   
3.  Marrying of data needs, data centre requirements, and business goals and objectives
   
4.  Select a vendor to develop your system
   
5.  VDC system set up and integration with current IT
   
6.  VDC deployment