If your organization is like many small- or medium-sized businesses (SMBs), you’ve had to make tough decisions due to the COVID-19 pandemic over the last year and a half. Perhaps you implemented a remote work policy, expanded to new markets, or moved more of your business online. Maybe you also opted to pause technology upgrades to make it to the next quarter. But now that your business has adapted, and as pandemic restrictions lift, you may be considering making a hardware purchase to better support your company in this altered landscape.
It may suit your business interests to invest in a server solution that can better support employees working remotely, handle more ecommerce orders, or provide better web app performance. Throughout the upgrade process, you have a number of decisions to navigate.
Server upgrade considerations
In addition to the complications of pandemic recovery, your business may face other obstacles when it comes to upgrading your servers. Like all SMBs, you have to balance your technology needs with investments in other areas. For example, timing and budgets may not allow for purchasing new servers and expanding your team at the same time. And when it comes to budget, TechTarget recommends not only considering the cost of the server, but also the costs of software licenses, housing the server, and IT resources.
Your IT department may be smaller than its larger corporate counterparts, potentially comprising just a few people, or, if you choose a third party to handle your needs, nonexistent. When it comes to researching data center solutions, deploying servers, and providing support once the new tech is up and running, saving IT time could mean either freeing up in-house IT admins to take care of other needs or keeping costs low for third-party IT.
When it is time to upgrade, matching your needs to a server solution can be a complex consideration. You don’t want to overinvest in technologies with capabilities that don’t match your workloads. On the other hand, upfront costs aren’t everything—a suboptimal solution “might not be powerful or reliable enough to handle mission critical workloads,” and could deliver a poor experience to both customers and employees.
Such a solution may have a shorter lifecycle, which would mean investing in hardware and licensing costs, as well as IT resources, to upgrade again. Taking the time to assess your current and future needs—such as the types of workloads you run, the number of customers and employees you support, and the growth you anticipate—can help you select a hardware solution to suit your needs for years to come.
Unique challenges
Any business must take a variety of concerns into account, but SMBs especially rise to meet a unique set of challenges: Timing, budgets, limited IT resources, and the search for suitable solutions may be just a fraction of the considerations your organization faces when it comes to upgrading.
As you move into this next phase of your business operations, it’s important to consider the types of workloads you run in your data center, either simultaneously or on separate servers.
You may benefit from a server solution that can support workload requirements such as sustaining more VDI users, keeping digital transactions running smoothly, and handling increased traffic on your web apps running on Kubernetes.
Download Dell’s white paper to learn about Kubernetes, Dell EMC PowerEdge R6515 servers, VDI and more as you consider a server upgrade.
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September 30, 2021 at 12:04AM by Dell Technologies, Khareem Sudlow
