DCN May 2017 | Page 30

design & facilities Management
Of course , modular data centre design has been with us for quite some time – although your definition of modular might differ significantly from mine . Nevertheless , the idea that a data centre can be built out a module at a time makes complete sense … unless one thinks that the open / commodity IT movement is going to become all prevalent . In which case , wouldn ’ t it make sense for the data centre to be pre-populated with standard x86 servers and standard storage boxes , which can be made live as and when , and on top of which each individual customer can run their software defined environments , and then run their applications on top of these ?
A crazy idea ? But when one thinks that many data centre problems are the result of humans going inside the data centre – doesn ’ t it make more sense to kit out the data centre in one go with the standard components that everyone will be using ? Okay , so that ’ s not very modular , but the chances of human error inside the data centre have just been reduced dramatically .
Intelligence is everything
Eliminating human beings from the data centre would seem to be the number one priority . The lightsout data centre has been around for quite some time , and we have all read about the hyperscalers who have huge data centres , with one person being responsible for tens of thousands of servers . One or more server fails , and the IT load is redistributed across the other 30,000 or so machines , and someone makes the long journey through the data centre to repair or , more likely , simply rip and replace the errant servers .
So , intelligence is everything - intelligent data centre operation , to make sure that the facilities and IT infrastructures are operating in an optimised , harmonious fashion .
The standard cabinets found in today ’ s data centres could become rather inefficient in terms of space usage in the not too distant future .
Intelligence to monitoring the infrastructure in real time ; intelligence to analyse this monitoring data , to try and spot any potential problems . Artificial intelligence ( AI ), neural networks , Internet of Things ( IoT ) – whatever you want to call it – this will come to know your data centre so closely that the possibility of an ‘ internal ’ problem will be all but eliminated . And suggestions about how to improve your data centre usage will be an added bonus .
As for resilience – I suspect that the centralised / distributed IT environment will run and run . After all , the recent trend to consolidate everything into fewer and fewer , more centralised data centres is now under attack from the edge computing phenomenon – bring the data closer to where it is needed . I suspect that Neanderthal husband and wife wrestled with the same problem – one cave or many caves ?!
And we end as we started – with cloud computing . The reality is that , whether we ’ re forced to by all the software manufacturers who won ’ t sell us ‘ hard ’ copies of their programs anymore , but insist we rent them , or we simply find the idea of someone supplying us all our IT needs for one monthly bill ( as with our other utility bills ) is extremely compelling .
What does all this have to do with the colocation market ? Well , it might be an idea to ask any potential data centre supplier / colo provider for a sight of both their technology and business model roadmaps , to ensure that they have some knowledge of what ’ s around the corner and are planning for the likely facility and IT changes required . The response to this question will tell you everything you might need to know about an organisation who you are going to trust with your prized possession – your company ’ s data .
30 | May 2017