As datacentres grow more complex, the time is ripe for the IT staff managing them to start deciding which parts of their jobs they could, or indeed should, be off-loading to third parties.

Two trends appear to be nudging datacentre managers inexorably towards a re-allocation of responsibility.

One is the emergence over the past couple of years of blade PCs, which both HP and ClearCube are pushing heavily. This relatively recent concept in client computing relocates the system unit to a 1U or 2U card that can slot into a rack system running centralised services. The display, keyboard, mouse and external USB ports are then connected via the network, and can be located anywhere within the company’s network. This puts the guts of the PC into the datacentre and under the direct, close control of IT – probably no bad thing.

The other factor is the need for datacentres to be more responsive to changing business priorities. These days, datacentre design has to take into account a broad range of current and predicted economic, business and, increasingly, environmental factors. Energy efficiency is a prime example of the kind of issue designers have to bear in mind.

This may be very good news for the planet, but unfortunately, it also means datacentres are becoming far more complex to set up and manage. A clear indication of the scale of this problem came with HP’s recent announcement that it had spotted a market opportunity in providing specialised teams of rocket scientists to help companies overcome datacentre management problems.

All this leaves managers with a dilemma. As they pack more equipment into the datacentre to deliver the economic benefits demanded by the boardroom, they are finding that more staff resources, management tools and external support are needed to keep the place running.

For many organisations, the issue may actually be a simple one. If the likes of HP, IBM and others already have the managements tools and personnel with the relevant expertise, then maybe the time really has come for datacentre managers to bite the bullet and let vendors take on the whole job for an annual fee.

And far from talking themselves out of their jobs, IT staff may find themselves released from the daily operational grind and free to build those fresh, more agile services that their employers will almost certainly require at some point in the near future. Who knows, it may even free up some budget for these new projects. Though that, of course, may be too much to hope for.