Kapil Bakshi
Chief Solutions Architect, Cisco Systems Inc.

Getting all organizations involved, across mission and IT functions, even if they don’t have a direct play in the data center aspects of things. But, as consumers of the services that the data center provides, or as influencers, they’ll need to be a part of it.

Second, you’ve got to have standards. And that plays directly into having a sound enterprise architecture strategy, where you’re building these standards.

And then there are some issues that might not be totally central such as the compliance aspects of things, whether they are compliance for data, or applications, or facilities or mission processes. They may not sound very central to a data center optimization effort, but they need to be considered. In some cases, they may influence strongly just how that optimization is going to happen.

To that, add a communications plan as an ongoing vehicle for letting the consumer community understand about things that are new and about things that are possible. That communication mechanism is often overlooked but can be critically important.