Is the data center an asset or liability?

http://www.itweek.co.uk/itweek/comment/2190911/give-hand-datacentre

As datacentres grow more complex, the time is ripe for the IT staff managing them to start deciding which parts of their jobs they could, or indeed should, be off-loading to third parties. Two trends appear to be nudging datacentre managers inexorably towards a re-allocation of responsibility.

One is the emergence over the past couple of years of blade PCs, which both HP and ClearCube are pushing heavily. This relatively recent concept in client computing relocates the system unit to a 1U or 2U card that can slot into a rack system running centralised services. The display, keyboard, mouse and external USB ports are then connected via the network, and can be located anywhere within the company’s network. This puts the guts of the PC into the datacentre and under the direct, close control of IT – probably no bad thing.

It just depends where you’re coming from; operationally it makes sense hand the challenges over to someone else, make everything a fixed cost, strategically we can concentrate on the firm, on business not debating with IT about data centres, however, one point, what’s the annual cost of the data centre space in comparison to buying one? Yes you need to absolve yourself of operational issues relating to the data centre, but as you depend on the data centre more and more, isn’t it a strategic asset? Couldn’t you buy and manage your own data centre and offset the tax owed over so many years? Consider your business, your strategy and how you want to have your data center provisioned, for the telecoms company buying a data center might make more sense, for Mike, the estate agent in Liverpool, co-location might be better, it all depends on you and your business.