Demands for IT capacity are unrelenting and often unpredictable, making it difficult for CIOs in mid-market businesses to keep up with the pace of change.

Growth from mergers, acquisitions and geographic expansion have resulted in server sprawl across many server rooms or aging data center infrastructures which are not able to meet future needs. How can anyone design a server room to last 10 to 20 years when the technology it supports changes every two or three years?

Even in this economic downturn, mid-size businesses are still feeling the heat – literally – in their server rooms. Recent surveys by InfoTech Research Group indicate that smaller companies face greater challenges in running out of power, space and cooling with 43 percent of them planning to build a new server room in the next 12-24 months.

Enterprise Strategy Group Research confirmed that green considerations, especially tactical data center energy efficiency projects, are driving companies to deploy new technologies and new initiatives to help them save costs and reduce environmental impact. How can you support the increased IT demand with shrinking IT budgets? One solution is to go modular.

Modular design is about using smaller increments of standardized components to match business requirements to IT requirements and add server room capacity as needed. They reduce the need to predict requirements over a long time to cover all contingencies. By building in smaller increments — or modules — you pay to build only what you need when you need it. In addition, you can scale as needed to deliver more capacity to meet new demands as required. It is no wonder that InformationWeek Analytics survey indicated 58 percent of mid-size clients favor modular designs.

With 43 percent of mid-market clients planning to build a new server room in the next 12-24 months, scalable modular data centers can provide the flexibility needed to address the challenges of cost, efficiency and environmental considerations. And at 500 to 2,500 square feet (approximately 50 to 250 square meters), they’re a good fit for this market segment.

To view the complete article, click here.