IoT and the dying corporate data centre

Once upon a time, corporate data centres were a fundamental part of doing business. But, as with anything in the tech industry, they’re facing death by innovation.

Thanks to cloud computing, the corporate data centre as we know it is dying. The days of building and maintaining vast on-premises data centres are going – if not gone.

But it’s not quite time to ring the death knell. Could IoT be the saviour of the corporate data centre?

The dying corporate data centre

The traditional corporate data centre was once the hub of your business activity. Indeed, IT operations have long been the core of business continuity. The software you use, the data you collect and analyse, your security back-ups and legacy content: the corporate data centre handled and stored it all.

Then, along came cloud computing.

The cloud eased the burden of storing, building and managing business IT operations. Corporations could rent server space and storage, instead of paying to host everything themselves. XaaS allowed businesses to use software without the resource drain of keeping it running in-house.

Today, workloads that once ran in the corporate data centre are now delivered with SaaS. We’re storing more and more in the cloud. And this inexorable rise of cloud services is seeing the traditional corporate data centre dwindle.

So, corporate data centres peaked and are on the decline. But here’s the thing: the technology that was once fundamental for business continuity still is. The need hasn’t disappeared, data centres are themselves centralised.

The rise of corporate IoT

Meanwhile, corporate use of the Internet of Things (IoT) is on the rise. It’s projected that by 2020 there will be 20 billion IoT connected devices. For many businesses, then, IoT is the next step in the digital transformation journey.

IoT is already helping enterprises empower their teams, keep track of their supplies and cut production costs. As tech continues to advance, corporate IoT stands to offer a birds-eye, on-demand view of your business.

That means that corporate equipment, facilities and even buildings are connecting to the internet. Every asset powering your operations is now ‘smart’. All these smart devices are creating a constant stream of data about how your business is operating.

And all that data needs somewhere to go — a central hub, if you will…

The corporate IoT data centre

The internet of things, then, might be the redemption the corporate data centre needs.

IoT relies on system integration — on every device communicating with the others. For enterprises, it also demands strict security protocols. This means that to have an IoT-connected business, you need to manage both outside threats and shadow IT.

On top of this, you need a central location to store, analyse and use the data corporate IoT devices collect. If that is, you’re to use the collective insight that smart devices provide.

So, you’ll need to automate, maintain, secure and manage the newly smart-connected equipment across your enterprise. IoT means an enormous ecosystem of free-flowing data. You’ll need a team to manage the real-time flow of information across that ecosystem; to make data-driven decisions based on live dashboards of every device and its status.

In short, an IoT-powered business needs everything the equipment of the old corporate data centre needed. The new corporate IoT data centre, then, will provide a new central hub for your business.

From IT to IoT

The corporate data centre as we know it might be dying. But, with the rise of the internet of things, there’s a chance for it to evolve.

Just as the cloud explosion proved inevitable, IoT is also set to be an enormous, enduring and unavoidable tech revolution.

So, in a connected world where every device has (or will soon have) its own inbuilt computer, we need dedicated technicians more than ever. In other words, we need corporate IT to evolve into corporate IoT.

Useful links

Please note: we originally published this article here https://dzone.com/articles/iot-and-the-dying-corporate-data-centre