Future Data Centers are Built for Change, Not Built to Last – Gartner

I recently attended a compelling Gartner presentation titled “Automation: The Linchpin for Cloud and Data Centers”. Among the many valuable insights, one quote stood out as both provocative and profoundly accurate:

“Future data centers are built for change, not built to last.”

This single statement reframes how we should think about infrastructure in the cloud era. I’ve since posed a related question to several enterprise IT and business leaders: “If a disaster wiped out your entire data center—applications, infrastructure, everything—how would you rebuild it?”

The typical response? A moment of silence, followed by a smile. Then, a glimmer of excitement as they imagine the possibilities—unshackled by legacy systems, complexity, and outdated assumptions.

Look to Startups for the Blueprint

For inspiration, we can look at the startup world. Most modern startups don’t build data centers. They leverage public cloud infrastructure from day one, favoring agility over ownership. Their focus is laser-sharp: invest in what generates revenue, and outsource what doesn’t.

As these startups scale into mid-sized enterprises, many begin to explore hybrid models. Some workloads remain in the public cloud, but others migrate to hosted private clouds to meet growing needs for control, security, and predictability.

This progression offers a valuable lesson for larger enterprises: infrastructure is a means to an end—not the end itself.

Reimagining Infrastructure in a Post-Disruption World

Established enterprises, for all the right reasons, rely on physical infrastructure. But if given the chance to rebuild from scratch, most would abandon the rigid, monolithic designs of the past in favor of something far more agile:

• Composable infrastructure over static architectures

• Microservices and containers over tightly coupled legacy apps

• Open standards and APIs over proprietary lock-in

• Cloud-native development that assumes failure—and designs for resilience

• Automation-first operations that scale and respond dynamically

In this vision, infrastructure becomes fluid. It flexes to support business needs. It enables change, rather than resists it. It’s less about permanence and more about responsiveness.

This isn’t just theoretical—it’s the mindset behind service-centric IT, where infrastructure serves business outcomes, not the other way around.

So How Do We Get There?

Most enterprises can’t—and shouldn’t—tear down their current environments overnight. But transformation starts with intention. To move toward a future-ready infrastructure, we need to:

• Adopt cloud-native design principles—even for workloads that aren’t yet in the cloud

• Invest in platforms that support hybrid and multi-cloud models, giving teams flexibility without lock-in

• Automate relentlessly, from provisioning to lifecycle management

• Embrace heterogeneity, allowing systems to evolve rather than forcing conformity

• Prepare for change, not permanence

The goal isn’t to eliminate infrastructure—it’s to reimagine it.

Final Thought: The New Data Center Mindset

Legacy infrastructure was built to endure. But the new digital economy doesn’t reward longevity—it rewards adaptability. The infrastructure of tomorrow won’t be defined by how long it lasts, but by how fast it evolves.

So the challenge is clear: stop designing systems that are built to last. Start designing systems that are built to change.