Networks Europe Jul-Aug 2018 | Page 48

48 THE DATA CENTRE OF TOMORROW As well as cybersecurity, one of the most pressing of these issues in the data centre is energy consumption, as they now account for up to 6% of global electricity use. This is a concern for business costs and there’s now increased pressure to take corporate responsibility for environmental concerns. Organisations like Greenpeace have been calling for tech companies to become more energy conscious for some time and now they are honing in on data centres’ carbon footprint. agility, security and customer experience. All of which are vital aspects all modern-day businesses are striving to achieve. Hybrid also lets businesses choose the right workloads for their environment, as well as to move workloads around depending on the businesses needs and new technologies. The ability to scale workloads on demand helps handle the massive amounts of data being created today. And, even more importantly, it means emerging technologies, such as AI and ML, are more accessible. AI and explosive growth As with much technology underpinning business, many data centres run on inefficient, legacy technology because companies tend to add to existing systems rather than optimising the existing system. All this puts extra pressure on data centres and intensifies long-standing issues. So, in order to keep pace, data centres will need to evolve. And AI may be just the thing. In the cybersecurity battle, the stakes for data centres are particularly high. They’re complex infrastructures and have extensive levels of encryption so preventing data breaches in an ever-evolving IT landscape requires constant vigilance. The solution again may lie in AI. Implementing AI systems can offer a more flexible and sophisticated solution to data security as well as the possibility of reducing reliance on human intervention. The nature of AI allows it to adapt far more quickly than humans as well as reducing the man-hours spent on round-the-clock monitoring issues and decrease the risk of human error. With all these data centre opportunities unlocked by AI, the concept of a human-free data centre is closer than many imagine. Some companies like Litbit are already trialling AI-driven robots to assist with data centre management and hardware maintenance, further cementing the ties between AI and data centre. This all then allows humans to focus on new areas of innovation. The need for green Think of the world today– it’s never been richer, humans have never lived such long, productive and healthy lives, and we’ve brought technology to the point where mac