Originally posted on Data Center POST

By: Brian Reagan, Chief Marketing Officer, CDS

With ongoing concerns about an economic downturn, companies are looking for ways to cut costs and optimize systems. Combine recession fears and tech spend expected to slow 5.4% this year amidst an IT labor shortage, and it’s easy to see why tech firms and IT departments need to reduce their budgets. The data center is a less obvious place to check for some hidden dollars.  

A downturn will delay major hardware refreshes, extending the age of the data center systems and adding pressure to modernize. By staying on top of data center infrastructure, using third-party maintenance providers, and optimizing data center maintenance, companies can run an efficient data center, shave dollars off their budgets and allocate their talent to higher-value projects. 

How old is your data center? 

A 2022 Uptime Institute study found that 52% of IT and data center managers report keeping their servers in operation for five years or longer. Research from CDS suggests that 65% of systems are at least five years old and found the median age of enterprise network and storage systems to be closer to seven years. Plus, economic headwinds typically set hardware refreshes back, meaning we can expect the average age of data center systems to go up again this year. 

Aging inventory creates an opportunity to evaluate the current spend on maintenance and support for systems that have high costs but are no longer Tier 1 critical. Knowing the costs and value of the system is even more important if it will be migrated to a new platform. 

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