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Circumventing Supply Chain Issues in the Data Center

While consulting with many organizations across many vertical markets, one issue plagues them all: Supply chain issues and delays related to the current chip shortage and lack of employees for many organizations. This is exacerbated by the fact that many organizations are shorthanded already and really struggling to keep their heads above water. So, what are you to do when there is only time to be reactive and you never feel like you’re moving the needle in a positive direction?

Many find themselves dealing with projects that must drive growth, productivity, and transformation—but they cannot get the equipment needed to start those projects, delaying the forward movement needed by the organization. This conundrum is felt by virtually every organization that I work with across the country. Big and small, education to aerospace—we’re all feeling the pinch.

While there is no silver bullet for every organization, what many have found helpful is to look to software, subscriptions, and cloud options that will drive better efficiency in their data center operations. This is inclusive of both hardware resources and assistance with visibility, troubleshooting, and orchestration of tasks. Let’s face it: many organizations do not invest their budget in tools to optimize their environment, but instead get caught in a never-ending cycle of hardware refreshes that don’t drive transformation.

Take this time to look into the options to invest in software tools that analyze and optimize what you already run. Many groups have determined that while additional hardware is going to be needed, they were able to reclaim unused resources that they already own by running deep analysis on their compute and storage resources. This also drives better and cheaper adoption of cloud resources, as you’ve now optimized your environment and know exactly what is needed if you port those workloads to the public cloud.

Tools that allow you to determine where performance is lacking or assist with finding root cause of an issue are a great addition to the arsenal. A great byproduct of these tools is that they also drive better security. Most downtime is caused by human error, especially in this day and age, where we are all dealing with a lot of distractions. Invest in tools now to help lower the burden to the IT staff—who are likely running lean and can use all the help they can get—and then further leverage these tools in the future to drive transformation and cloud hybridity.

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About the author:
Jeff Ehrenhart is a National Data Center + Cloud Solutions Architect with a proven record of success across many vertical markets, including SLED, Healthcare, Commercial, Utilities and Aerospace. Versed in technologies across Data Center, Security and Enterprise Networking, he is a specialist in holistic designs encompassing complex requirements and assembling the right people, processes and technologies to help customers be successful.