Data Center

Is It a Mistake to Stretch Out IT Modernization Lifecycles?

An updated infrastructure can help schools operate more efficiently and take advantage of emerging technologies such as artificial intelligence.

Matt McLaughlin

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Matt is a regular contributor to the CDW Tech Magazines.

Unexpected remote learning pivots, tight budgets and funding cliffs have led many school districts to stretch out their IT refresh cycles. While the standard timeline to replace aging infrastructure is every three to five years, some districts are trying to extend that time frame to save money. However, IT experts note that putting off modernization comes with its own costs.

By holding on to aging IT infrastructure, K–12 organizations may limit their ability to modernize and implement emerging technologies with new capabilities while enhancing productivity and efficiency in current processes.

“Hardware — especially in on-premises environments — is aging,” says Chris Gibes, a manager in the hybrid infrastructure practice at CDW. “We're starting to see these refresh cycles impacting the ability to improve and bring in new applications, and it’s also creating concerns about power consumption and reliability.”

Modernization provides a path for companies to avoid these concerns, but they must understand several key strategic considerations. Successful modernization efforts will move workloads to optimized infrastructure components and take full advantage of new technology capabilities.

Click the banner below to explore infrastructure modernization for your K–12 schools.

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Why Should Schools Aim to Modernize Their Infrastructure?

Modernizing IT infrastructure can help schools reduce maintenance costs, increase agility and utilize automation.

“Modernization initiatives provide increased agility, enable frictionless service delivery and, most important, allow highly skilled employees to focus on returning value to the business,” says Matt Cobb, a solution architect team lead at CDW.

Modernization also provides access to new capabilities. “There are technological advances that organizations want to take advantage of, and the most obvious one is artificial intelligence,” Gibes says. “We know that AI is coming and that organizations have to be ready for it.”

Even in its infancy, AI is making waves in education. The Consortium for School Networking’s State of EdTech District Leadership report notes that 97% of ed tech leaders see benefits in how AI can positively impact education, and 35% stated that they currently had a generative AI initiative in place.

To take full advantage of AI, companies need infrastructure that supports it. This includes storage platforms that can keep up with the creation and movement of massive quantities of data, and processing power to handle the complex algorithms that AI relies on. Many companies are turning to the cloud to meet these needs, while others are purchasing hardware with advanced capabilities, such as high-powered graphics processing units to support the demands of AI workloads.

LEARN MORE: Can you prepare your cloud to safely implement AI?

A Hybrid Future Requires an Effective IT Strategy

As schools include modernization initiatives in their IT infrastructure plans, many are considering a hybrid model that uses cloud resources as well as on-premises hardware. According to a 2024 report from Flexera, 73% of organizations operate a hybrid cloud environment.

“This is something that's happened over the past 10 years — this widespread adoption of public cloud — because people were getting services in the public cloud that they liked, but they needed to keep their on-premises environments as well,” Gibes says.

To see the best results, organizations need to approach their modernization initiatives strategically. An effective first step is to rightsize their cloud investments. For example, the public cloud offers flexibility and seamless scalability for workloads that have intermittent demand. Keeping workloads with steadier demand in an in-house data center can help schools save money, provide greater control and address concerns about security and regulatory compliance.

DISCOVER: How can schools take advantage of cloud bursting?

“On-premises infrastructure usually has some characteristics that provide really good performance in certain circumstances,” Gibes says. “It also gives an organization greater control over security.”

Any effective modernization effort needs a clear, comprehensive strategy to guide it. Many schools don’t know where to start, but a trusted partner can help. A third party can assess an organization’s current IT infrastructure and map out a path to new capabilities. “There are a lot of paths that you can go down,” Cobb says. “Advisory services and assessments can help you along the path that’s right for you.”