Factors Leading to Transformation of Data Centers in the Future

Data Centers have gained importance with hyper connectivity. To handle connectivity and capacity across the organization, data centers serve as the brain of the organization. There are changing landscapes of data centers in the coming years.

Consolidation of Resources for Energy Efficiency and Cost Savings

Huge and unmanageable customer and commercial information is stored across the data center, which enables communication, and forms the framework of the businesses operation. Huge data centers of global firms such as Amazon and Google suffices just five percent of the total national data usage, as per a Forbes article "Data Centers, The Future Is Both Consolidated and Dispersed" by Tom Coughlin.

The technology that supports a data center has developed immensely, with enhanced technical skills required for data management. However, operational efficiencies in data center management haven't grown at a similar pace. A recently released report by NRDC points out that the major chunk of data (95 percent of servers) are stored across 3 million data centers across the US. The same report points out that the servers operate at just 12-18 percent of their potential capacity, causing significant wastage of resources and energy.

As we move towards 2015 there will be an increased requirement to enhance operational efficiencies in data center management. There will be a need to merge resources and aim for energy efficiency and cost savings. Recent memory technologies have made way for separate server operation in an energy efficient manner and have led the local servers and IT sources to allow for greater connectivity, examination, and Internet of Things.

Innovations

Artificial intelligence (AI) will soon enter data centers for enhanced optimization related to IT load, temperature, and improvement in the cooling process. This ultimately results in energy efficiency and enhanced automation of one or more drives to perform specific tasks.

Introduction of IPv6 influences data centers in a great way. IPv6 opens up a large number of IP addresses; enhance security and efficiency with improved and new service support.

Although cost and interface issues pertaining to solid state drives (SSD) continue, more businesses adopt it and replace hard disk drive in data centers as the technology behind SSD develops. SSD's are better in terms of performance and durability. Many companies have adopted complete flash memory. The hybrid storage technique matures instead of a complete replacement.

The introduction of new and advanced virtualization technology will impact data centers. Virtualization redefines redeployment, performance, flexibility, automation and testing procedures in data centers.

More organizations opt for data centers that are cloud based, as technology is making cloud solutions more secure and inexpensive.  There are increased options for hybrid and public cloud solutions.

Changes Due to Various Disruptions

A recent report by Gartner, released in September 2014, has stated that data centers will be significantly influenced by technological developments and shifting paradigm of geopolitical factors.  This is mainly due to competitive forces playing between - companies of East and West, traditional data center vendors; authority of top notch cloud service providers; and shift to open-source software by buyers and businesses – which will show up by 2016.

Current data center vendors are reluctant to these disruptive changes that might affect the operational architecture of data centers, as they are profiting from the current state of networking, storage, and software architecture. Many businesses are going for cloud solutions, open source software, new product introduction. This has led to price wars by major data center players. Data centers might witness more changes with a transition happening from software defined storage technology to energy efficient processors and internet based integrated architecture.

Increased Demands for Operational Efficiency

As big shot cloud providers such as Amazon, Google, and Microsoft increase their pressure and transition from internal business apps to consumer based mobile apps, there will be an increased expectation from data centers. Customers expect enhanced adaptability, magnitude, and automation, as pointed out by Gartner. There will be more focus on operational efficiency and improved utilization of system capacity.

Increased Competition

Enhanced subsidy funded data center innovations in China affect the data center market and grow its market share by 2017, as per Gartner analysis. With buyers shifting towards open source software and hardware developed in-country, there will be a substantial boost to local and medium level vendors.

More investments find their way in flash memory, as software developers have to make sure that their applications and solutions are suited across various platforms and hardware. The software developers are required to choose their preferred hardware makers, allowing such compatibility leading to both dispersion and consolidation of the infrastructure tool market.

References

 

(5, 6, 7) Conner, Forrest. "Five innovations that are key to the future of data centers." 27 January 2015. Techrepublic. 04 February 2015 

(1, 2, 3) Coughlin, Tom. "Data Centers, The Future Is Both Consolidated and Dispersed." 09 May 2014. Forbes Website. 04 February 2015 

(9, 11, 12, 13) "Gartner Outlines Eight Critical Forces to Shape Data Center Strategy." 25 November 2013. Gartner. 04 February 2015 

(4) Miller, Rich. "Artificial Intelligence: A New Frontier in Data Center Innovation." 06 June 2014. Data Center Knowledge. 04 February 2015 

(8, 10) Woods, Jack. "What's the future of the data center? The big list of thought leadership perspective." 04 March 2014. Silicon ANGLE. 04 February 2014