Companies are evolving and data centers are changing right alongside them. Or is it the other way around? It’s likely a little bit of both. Businesses are trying to work at greater speeds, but don’t want to sacrifice efficiency or savings in the process. And data centers are constantly developing so they too can improve how they operate.
Here are five current trends taking place in the data center industry:
Open source provides IT administrators with almost unrelenting restraints.
Pushing into the open source frontier
Open source provides IT administrators with almost unrelenting restraints to edit or manage code based on their needs. This type of flexibility allows these professionals to quickly and efficiently fix data center problems.
Unlike closed technology, open source also drives down costs because programmers can avoid spending a lot of money on expensive upgrades and IT repairs. Instead, they can just use already-developed code that’s been shared through the open-source network.
However, keep in mind that open source is still a new concept and most enterprise applications are not yet designed to support open-source technology. Instead, companies should prepare diligently for an open-source future by ensuring they can opt out of their current hardware.
Increased colocation
Companies covet flexibility, and with the data center market expected to grow exponentially in the coming years, it’s not shocking they want facilities that can grow with them.
That’s where colocation comes into play. Colocation gives companies the ability to adjust the amount of data center space it needs under a pay-as-you go plan. This type of flexibility saves on IT infrastructure and building costs because companies don’t have to worry about building a brand-new facility every time they need more space. Further, companies save on potential costs associated with downtime – colocated equipment is reliable.
“Colocation is quickly becoming the nexus of both cloud and enterprise IT,” said Katie Broderick, Research Director at 451 Research. “The colocation market is serving as datacenter arms dealer to both enterprises and the cloud. In this process, colocation is often becoming the strategic connection point between the two.”
The colocated market is expected to grow because “the move to cloud continues to drive strong demand for leased datacenter space. It is because the industry is maturing, and providers are becoming more strategic in their approach to customers,” said Kelly Morgan, research director of North American Datacenters, reported 451 Research.
Hyperconvergence
In an effort to consolidate systems and processes – and reduce mistakes – data centers have been turning toward hyperconvergence. This type of infrastructure software converges networking, storage and virtual resources in a single commodity hardbox. This allows for easier maintenance and development as well as expansion. Furthermore, it can cut the costs of these data centers by reducing workloads and improving energy efficient measures.
Leveraging big data
Big data becomes an issue when servers run out of storage and fail to handle incoming information. Companies need to make sure that their servers are scalable and a backup plan is in place if (and when) data begins to fill up too much space. The last thing centers want to do is shut down a system solely to increase storage.
Mobility
More and more companies are turning to cloud computing to increase mobility in their workplace, and they need data centers that will support these endeavors. More so, not only do they need cloud systems, but these solutions must also guarantee 99.9 percent uptime.
