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“ We ’ re still seeing organisations attempt to extend the longevity of hardware , in particular due to recent , tougher times , but they must be cognisant of that fact that this approach could have a far deeper impact on a business ’ s bottom line than ever before ,” said Jaap Scholten , Head of Group Hybrid IT Strategy at Datacentrix .

“ The lifespan of hardware is typically three years , but we ’ re seeing companies attempt to stretch out the lifespan of their hardware for longer periods , even up to five years . And aside from the obvious risks , like equipment failure and greater vulnerability to cyberattacks , there has been a tremendous shift in where a business ’ costs lie and this is also affected when using equipment beyond its optimum life cycle .”

Scholten believes this point is of particular relevance to South African organisations , as the country has only recently emerged from its longest consecutive period

Jaap Scholten , Head of Group

Hybrid IT Strategy at Datacentrix of rolling blackouts , only to have loadshedding reinstated a mere two days later .

“ Power consumption has become a significant operational cost for local companies and unfortunately load-shedding is a dilemma that will not easily be solvable , even over the longer term . Older hardware is more power hungry and , in light of our ongoing blackout challenges especially , there are cleverer ways of ensuring that your technology stays up-to-date .”

Scholten says that more modern infrastructure uses far less power than older hardware , a point reinforced by Uptime Institute , the global digital infrastructure authority , which states that over 65 % of the power used by IT in data centres is used to process just 7 % of the work and that this is purely due to ageing equipment inefficiencies .

“ So , the question is , do you opt to upgrade your hardware more regularly , using CAPEX budget , with a view towards energy efficiency and performance gains and achieving a faster ROI or do you decide against owning hardware completely ?”

Here , there are two potential choices to be made , he continues , the first being the option of leasing hardware from a solution provider .

“ This decision will certainly assist a business that is struggling to find CAPEX in their budget cycle , but it also raises the issue of whether it doesn ’ t then make more sense to embrace the second option , which would be to move to the cloud . Using a cloud service provider will remove the burden of hardware ownership and its related challenges – like power consumption – from the client , while also ensuring that the company still has access to scalable , powerful infrastructure with guaranteed availability .” x

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