Why Network Modernization Is Essential for Today’s Data Center

Key to Digital Transformation

Legacy cabling infrastructure often suffers from siloed management processes, manual administration, time-consuming moves, adds and changes, security issues, and ever-increasing maintenance costs. Such environments are unable to keep up with today’s always-on, everywhere connectivity requirements. That’s why network modernization is at the heart of digital transformation.

Network modernization should focus on efficiency and managing complexity, with six primary goals in mind:

• Scalability - Organizations need cabling infrastructure that can scale to support increased traffic without a complete overhaul.
• Availability - Unplanned outages are increasingly expensive. The cabling infrastructure should be designed to ensure the highest levels of availability.
• Accessibility - Data center personnel need ready access to cabling to troubleshoot and resolve problems and make changes.
• Density - To maximize the use of data center space, organizations need cabling that fits more capacity in a smaller space.
• Flexibility - The cabling infrastructure must be able to respond to changing — and often unpredictable — requirements.
• Sustainability - Modernization decisions should favor vendors that offer more environmentally friendly products.

Benefits of Network Modernization

By focusing on these objectives, organizations can achieve numerous benefits from their modernization efforts:

• Improved performance - Modern cabling infrastructure such as high-density fiber help to reduce latency and improve the overall performance of critical applications.
• Reduced errors - According to an Uptime Institute study, human error plays a role in 70 percent of data center outages.¹ A more accessible and flexible infrastructure reduces the risk of mistakes.
• Maximized data center capacity - Modern cabling infrastructure consumes less space, optimizes airflow, and facilitates greater IT equipment density.
• Greater operational efficiency - By reducing complexity, modern cabling infrastructure minimizes the amount of tedious, manual work that data center staff must perform.
• Faster deployment - The right network design enables data center staff to get new capacity up and running quickly — and with less waste.

Hyperscale data centers have been at the leading edge of the network modernization trend as they have grown in size and volume. However, data centers of all sizes can benefit from a network modernization strategy. Colocation providers need a flexible, scalable cabling infrastructure to facilitate high-speed connection to service providers and add capacity as their tenants dictate.

The Importance of the Right Partner

Having the right partner is critical to the success of any network modernization initiative. A qualified partner will stay up-to-date on the latest cabling and connectivity products and have the ability to design, implement, and manage all aspects of the data center environment. The right partner will also have a global reach, a well-managed supply chain, and streamlined procurement capabilities to help data center operators meet their time-to-market objectives.

Wesco has longstanding relationships with industry-leading manufacturers of high-performance cabling and cable management solutions, as well as certified engineers and installation specialists. Our data center infrastructure team works in concert with our distribution and logistics teams to ensure the success of network modernization projects at any scale, anywhere in the world. Explore our data center solutions to see how we can address your specific needs and objectives.

¹ Uptime Intelligence Annual Outage Analysis, 2023