Intel IT's Data Center Strategy

Intel's data center strategy is to apply breakthrough technologies, solutions, and processes to accelerate Intel’s business. We also run Intel data center services like a factory, affecting change in a disciplined manner. Our approach enables us to optimally meet Intel’s business requirements while providing our internal customers with effective data center infrastructure capabilities and innovative business services.

Building on previous investments and techniques, our data center strategy has generated savings exceeding USD 3.8 billion from 2010 to 2019. Over the next three years, we plan to extend the data center strategy to continue our data center infrastructure transformation. We will accomplish this by using disruptive server, storage, network, infrastructure software, and data center facility technologies. These can lead to unprecedented quality-of-service levels and reduction in total cost of ownership (TCO) for business applications. And they will enable us to continue to improve IT operational efficiency and be environmentally responsible.

Transformational elements of our data center strategy include the following:

• A focus on three primary KPIs. These metrics enable us to measure the success of data center transformation: Meet growing customer demand (SLAs and QoS) within constrained spending targets (remaining cost-competitive) while optimally increasing infrastructure asset utilization (asset efficiency).
• Stimulating bolder innovation by changing our investment model. Comparing our current capabilities to a “best achievable model” encourages us to strive for innovation that will transform our infrastructure at a faster rate than if we sought only incremental change.
• New unit-costing financial model. This model enables us to better assess our data center TCO based on the business capabilities our infrastructure is supporting. The model measures the cost of a unit of service output and enables us to compare investments and make informed trade-off decisions across business functions. This enables us to maximize ROI and business value.

Some of our most notable achievements include:

• 44% savings with disaggregated server design, compared to a full-acquisition refresh.
• 400% increase in data transfer rates between sites through international WAN links.
• One-day deployment with our process transformation for new physical server deployment.
• 252x capacity increase in our 6th generation high-performance computing (HPC) environment and an 107x quality improvement.

Our data center transformation strategy is critical for Intel IT to stay competitive. We are committed to providing a foundation for continuous innovation that will improve the quality, velocity, and efficiency of Intel IT’s business services.