Servers 

Are you building out your on-premises or co-located data center? Servers are the backbone of any enterprise network. When you are shopping for data center infrastructure, think about the different types of solutions that are best suited for your organization's objectives. Are you looking for storage density or do you need the resiliency and responsiveness of blade servers?  

When you are building out your next data center deployment, be sure to consider the various specifications that you will need in order to configure each of your hosts properly. Do you need infrastructure that will handle terabytes of RAM? Are you looking for vSAN ready nodes? What about storage drives , storage enclosures , and storage accessories ? 

No two data center deployments are alike and you must implement a data center strategy to get the most your technology investment. It is very important to be forward thinking when you build out your data center. If you are a business that must keep downtime to an absolute minimum, be sure to procure hardware that has hot-swappable components.  

Whenever you get an alert that a component is faulty, you will be able swap out the part without having to power down the host. When downtime must be avoided at all costs, you will pat yourself on the back for buying a server with a hot swappable architecture.  

Building a server deployment is no easy task. When you buy new data center infrastructure, you should not plan for the present but instead plan for future expansion. For example, should you build your storage arrays using SAS or SSD disks? Should you buy additional storage bays that can be rapidly attached using fibre channel? 

Most modern hosts will be on the VMware hardware compatibility list but as a best practice, you should always check before you buy. Even if you are using a free virtualization solution like Microsoft Hyper-V, you should carefully examine the requirements to ensure that your server deployment is flawless. 

Be sure to consider the amount of rack space you have available for your new server deployment. For example, most cabinets have anywhere from 42u to 44u worth of space. If your cabinet is 42u, you can safely deploy twenty-one 2u hosts in this rack.  

Also, don't forget to buy server rails. When you buy a new server, most manufacturers require that you buy the server rails separately. While those on a budget may consider buying generic rails, most server manufacturers recommend that you buy rails specifically designed for the model your'e purchasing.