The rise of Web-centric computing means that the focus on IT assets has shifted from the physical to the logical.

German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche said, "That which fails to destroy me makes me stronger." Yes, if you've survived this once-boom-and-bust IT cycle without feeling burnt out, then you must feel really strong. But slow down, it's not time to breathe a sigh of relief; now you need to use every bit of strength you've built up to do battle with the changes that are shaking up the IT industry before you.

Major technology vendors and forward-looking Web and IT managers agree that a new model of Web-centric computing is taking shape, but they're not sure what it will look like or what to call it. Will it be on-demand computing, as IBM has touted? Will be Oracle, Sun and other vendors to push the grid technology fever? Or is it headed entirely in the direction of utility computing, automated computing, virtualization, or something else?

Technology giants such as Cisco, EMC, HP, and Microsoft are all in a fierce battle for your favor, and the design winners will reap the rewards over the next decade. (Where's the proof? Just look at the current dominance of the Wintel camp and the client/server space.)

You'll have to do a bit of sifting through these lofty ideas, researching the lines of development of your key technology vendors, while at the same time trying to make the best choices for each layer of your infrastructure and the applications on top of it.

Don't worry, let us help you understand the changes ahead. We will explore in this article a concept we call the New Data Center. The emergence of the new data center represents a quiet revolution in the IT industry, one that carries both risks and rewards for you and your strategic suppliers.

Only time will tell if the industry can finally call the next few years the "New Data Center Era". We present this concept here for your consideration as you design your new networked IT environment. Then you have to decide what works best for each of the competing operating systems (Unix, Linux, and Windows), each of which has experienced a different path to success. In the Windows space, you're looking at multiple upgrade technologies for the operating system and other core Microsoft software components to support stronger collaboration and application integration.

In addition, you're picking development platforms for a new generation of Web applications. If you don't already understand the various standards, security, and management issues surrounding these new applications, you'll soon become an insider. Your network infrastructure must be able to meet the new demands of collaboration and the explosive growth of Web applications. Getting ready for high-quality support for VoIP and emerging Session Initiation Protocol applications will likely mean upgrading hubs and data center switches to 10Gb/sec Ethernet, as well as upgrading wiring closets to 1G.

Many companies are also deploying a whole host of new equipment to address specific high-volume, high-transaction Web sites and new applications for the Web -- let's say, Layer 4 through Layer 7 switches, Secure Sockets Layer acceleration, and load balancing. Across the Web infrastructure ecosystem, vendors are competing with each other not only in the area of product performance, but also in the ability to consolidate more functions into a single appliance. Ultimately, though, you want to build a single Web infrastructure without having to continue to rush around for every new Web challenge. This will lead to conflicts between Web and legacy infrastructure vendors in controlling a unified network capable of supporting existing and distributed new applications. Robust security measures are necessary for the new data center, but are still difficult to describe. The combination of evolving threats and increasingly intense attacks, but companies looking for ways to make applications more decentralized and information more accessible, is a dangerous one.

Over the next few years, you'll have to choose how best to deploy security technology throughout your new data center: what hardware, software and network infrastructure security tools should be installed? What role (if any) should managed security services play? How do you manage the data tidal wave with the growing number of security tools available? And then there's the headache of constantly patching software and wireless technology security challenges, which can be a real pain in the ass. Along with new data centers come new demands for systems and network management. Major vendors must go beyond the device management level to give users a clear understanding of application performance - and then provide the tools to ensure that that performance is realized. What's more, you'll need to better support mobile device, network, and security management integration, and be aware of and enthusiastic about the automated (i.e., self-recovery) management strategies of major vendors like IBM, HP, and Microsoft.