Latest Data Centre Opinions

IT spending can be difficult to justify at times when finances are tight, and even harder to justify when there’s no sign of an upturn in the foreseeable future. Organisations that find themselves fighting for survival are more likely to instinctively want to redirect money to the frontline rather than the back office.

Techerati and Data Centre World are giving shout-outs to data centre professionals who have been nominated by their industry colleagues for exceptional efforts in recent weeks. This month, Nick Ewing, Managing Director at EfficiencyIT, nominates Simon Binley, Data Centre Manager at Wellcome Sanger Institute

It is very easy to think about taking an edge data centre approach as expensive – but today data centres come in all shapes and sizes. Here are three different ways you can implement your own edge data centres.

Data centres are critical utilities, the almost invisible heart, lungs and nerve cells of the digital revolution, facilitating increasing general economic activity for the good of citizens – nationally and internationally. 

The first era of cloud computing has been over for some time now, so what are you still doing lifting and shifting your data centre into the cloud?

Today, organisations moving to the cloud must do more than merely ‘copy and paste’ what they have in the data centre, directly into a cloud environment. Organisations should look at delivering IT as a service to the business and/or their customers, rather than as a technology platform, where applications reside.

We are living in a Connected Everything Era, with data centres rapidly expanding and depleting environmental resources. As an integral part of urban communities, they require abundant spaces and remain the primary driver of global energy consumption in the foreseeable future.

This demand is disruptive during times of both peril and opportunity due to the Covid-19 pandemic. 

Covid-19 has altered the demands of digital infrastructure 24×7 around the world. What we learned from previous economic dislocations, such as the dotcom bust or the 2008 financial crisis, is that data centre providers adapt, emerge, and stay resilient.

While the rest of society shifted to digital tools to navigate quarantine measures and stay-at-home restrictions, US-based data centre developer Compass Datacenters was figuring out how it could continue commissioning facilities during a period of unprecedented demand for digital infrastructure.

The company’s solution, virtual commissioning, is an innovative approach that could have far-reaching benefits for the data centre industry long after the pandemic subsides.

A decade ago data centres were an emerging asset class and approached by investors with considerable trepidation. Today, they have passed the COVID19 resilience test with distinction and these “digital factories” are becoming a magnet for investment funds

Currently, only 10 percent of the so-called ‘critical raw materials’ used in data centres are recovered. If we want to further reduce the impact of data centres on the environment and our living environment, the percentage of devices and materials that are re-used or recycled will have to be drastically increased.

That is why a group of companies, universities and other parties – including Green IT Amsterdam – are starting a research programme under the name CEDaCI into circular models for data centres.

It was once the preserve of older-style legacy mainframe computers, and until recently was considered by many as only applicable for high performance computing (HPC) requirements.

However, liquid cooling is today becoming a serious contender for mainstream applications, especially those emerging at the edge of the network. Deployed in unmanned, remote sites where high levels of reliability and low maintenance are key considerations, edge computing environments must remain as secure and resilient as their larger counterparts.

Edge infrastructure is critical to secure the future of telecoms. This is an industry in flux. Revenues are flattening as consumers demand more data at a static cost. 

At the same time, OTT players such as Facebook and Netflix have created innovative, consumer-friendly services using existing telecom infrastructure. Edge presents an opportunity for the telco industry to carve out a new role for itself; one that it is best placed to own.

Telcos are in a strong position to capitalise on the edge. Unlike the existing data centre giants, they boast an extensive real estate footprint ripe for conversion. 

Circular economy is all about creating a roadmap from ‘cradle to grave’ to ‘cradle to cradle’. The ideal is to create a system that is regenerative by design, which minimises harmful emissions and turns waste into manufacturing resource. ‘Eternal life’ for our equipment is the great modern-day challenge, but it is by no means an impossible dream.