From Dinosaur to Digital: A Practical Guide to Your Data Center Automation Journey

Seconds after an online consumer clicks the checkout button, an order arrives at an e-commerce distribution center and a series of automated tasks fire into action: picking the item from the correct SKU, moving it to a dispatch processing point, preparing for dispatch, loading it on to a vehicle—all happen with little human intervention.

Yet, in between the consumer clicks and the order fulfilment, these inputs and outputs will pass through one or many data centers. To the consumer, the data center is another invisible marvel of automation and modern technology—connecting them to the world, bringing them information (and goods) at record speeds. Data centers are now at a crossroad, embarking on a digital transformation of their own, delivering our omnipresent digital services. 

“Automation” is a subject often remarked upon at data center seminars and conferences with discussions about robotics and dark data centers trending across all channels. The industry agrees that the future of the data center lies with an automation-enabled operational model. Just as automation has reshaped distribution and manufacturing, so too will it reshape the data center. This exciting future for our digital infrastructure is both inspiring and intimidating. With unprecedented demand for capacity and enormous data center inventory already operational, how can an operator get from here to there? How do data center leaders assess where to start? What changes will this bring for personnel, processes and total cost of ownership (TCO)? Most of all, how can you bring your data center from today to an automated tomorrow without sacrificing reliability and uptime? 

Automation is overturning the operational models behind many data centers—and creating untold opportunities for this asset class. Discover actionable ways to automate key operational processes in your data center.