Shulou(Shulou.com)06/02 Report--

The future data center industry may achieve smarter infrastructure, more rationalized workloads, and global data center-as-a-service procurement models that can be invoked at any time around the world.

Although the life cycle of enterprise data centers is measured in decades, a variety of related technologies within the data center industry are constantly changing.

"the development of today's enterprise data center is actually out of step with the development of related devices within it. It's like using the latest generation of iMac accessories on Apple Macintosh in 1984. So the development of the data center is not so good. The power consumption, heat dissipation and space requirements of the data center have all changed." Said Jennifer Cook, research director of the data center trend and strategy team at market research firm IDC.

This mismatch is driving organizations of all sizes to carry out drastic transformations in their data centers in order to keep up with and promote the accelerated development of enterprise operations. According to IDC, by 2020, the demand for next-generation applications and new IT architectures will force 55% of enterprise organizations to upgrade their existing data center facilities or deploy new data center facilities.

Modernization is one of IDC's ten key predictions for the global data center market over the next three years. The company also predicts that the entire data center industry will continue to shift towards software-defined infrastructure, widespread adoption of autonomous IT infrastructure, and a shift to a consumption-based payment model.

"Technologies and operational models that adapt to faster changes are entering the data center, and these technologies are having a significant impact on the relevant physical facilities of the data center and the data center itself." Cook said. " Current IT enterprise organizations are beginning to further realize that they need to drive innovation and provide more resources to drive more business development And they need to grow at the speed of enterprise business, rather than traditional IT, which will undoubtedly have a profound impact on business decisions in enterprise data centers, including the use of data centers, modernization, and how to pay for data center resources. "

Here are IDC's top ten forecasts for the data center industry over the next one to three years:

Modernization of ● data Center

It is expected that by 2020, the heavy workload requirements of the new IT architecture in the next generation of applications and critical business facilities will force 55% of enterprise organizations to modernize their data center assets by updating their existing data center facilities or deploying new data center facilities.

Rationalization of ● workload

It is expected that by 2019, 50% of enterprise organizations will begin to actively rationalize workloads and accelerate the adoption of next-generation workloads. As a result, they need to make major changes to the design and layout of the infrastructure, as well as the IT operation model.

● hybrid IT operation

It is expected that by the end of 2019, 70 per cent of organizations engaged in digital transformation will strive to translate their business needs into effective IT investment and operational plans, forcing them to change their staff recruitment goals to ensure that they have the advanced skills chain needed to build a digital supply.

Modularization of ● facilities

It is expected that by 2021, the expanded use of power-consuming accelerated computing technologies will force most major data center operators to adopt a modular approach to deploy power / cooling assets in their data center facilities.

● IT-based consumption

By 2020, consumption-based procurement in the data center industry is expected to overshadow the traditional procurement model by improving the "as-a-service" model, so it will account for 40 per cent of corporate IT infrastructure spending.

● data control

It is expected that by 2021, 25% of large enterprise organizations will use data controls to set up and implement automated data control across cloud services, core data centers, and edge locations, turning mandatory regulatory compliance investment into an advantage.

● Software-defined IT

It is expected that by the end of 2019, the need for greater agility, manageability, and asset utilization will force business organizations to transform digitally and migrate more than 50 per cent of their data center and edge IT infrastructure to software-defined models.

● Intelligent Edge data Center

It is expected that by 2021, half of the critical infrastructure in the enterprise data center will operate independently, and the use of autonomous IT in intelligent edge locations will be further expanded as enterprises try to connect core and edge resources to support their digital transformation plans.

● digitally ready Campus

It is expected that by 2021, more than 50% of consumer-oriented business organizations will spend more time upgrading their network, computing, and storage resources at the edge rather than in their core data centers.

● Service Assurance

It is expected that by 2019, 60% of customers of digital services will not be able to meet expectations because providers of these services cannot effectively monitor and respond quickly to reduced performance, utilization, and cost requirements.

Cook of IDC attended a web conference with Susan Middleton, the company's director of technology financing strategy research, and Chad Vilars, vice president of data center and cloud computing, to discuss the company's forecast for the data center industry over the next few years. At a time when corporate organizations are beginning to map out the future of their data centers, the goal of IDC research is to provide IT leaders of corporate organizations with a blueprint for this area, to point out to these IT leaders what needs to be done to adapt and drive improvement in the process of digital transformation, Cook said.

"because the current standards for cloud computing, speed and flexibility are very high, IT within the enterprise is indeed urgently required to transform into a service type of business, but this is difficult to achieve in traditional data center facilities." Cook said.

1. Data Center Modernization

The modernization project will allow organizations to move to a more transparent operating model and provide IT leaders with the insights needed to make more informed decisions about workload placement.

"Automation technology will be widely used not only in the IT infrastructure, but also in the critical infrastructure-power and cooling infrastructure-to drive better resource utilization and better asset management." Cook said.

"the day-to-day work of enterprise data center operations managers can be made easier by investing in more intelligent data center technologies." Cook suggested that today's IT professionals actively urge their corporate executives to actively deploy emerging technologies in this area. Intelligent data center technology has been around for some time to convey status, performance, and capacity information, but business organizations have been trying to make full use of the data, she points out. And this situation will have to change.

"from now on, developing the ability to collect and analyze real-time data from critical infrastructure will be a real bet, especially in a more decentralized and diverse data center ecosystem," Cook said. "

2. Consumption-based IT is on the rise

On the spending side, IDC's Middleton discussed the issues of service-based procurement and consumption-based payment models in data centers.

In the past few years, the purchasing strategy of enterprises has gradually shifted to a pay-per-use (pay-per-use) model, and this trend is further accelerating. "the consumption-based procurement model has become a requirement of CFO and CIO for the flexibility and transparency of these payment structures," Middleton said. " By 2020, as-a-service model is expected to account for as much as 40 per cent of corporate IT infrastructure spending.

Digital transformation is also one of the reasons for the transformation of enterprises to this kind of consumption model. Changing the workplace model, the need to increase IT flexibility, and cost transparency requirements all affect corporate IT consumption decisions and investments. At the same time, suppliers and service providers have launched new IT procurement plans and as-a-service models using proprietary infrastructure technologies, Middleton said. "We expect the pace of innovation in procurement programmes to increase rapidly." She said.

For IT enterprise organizations, these new models will provide them with a deeper understanding of the usage and costs associated with various IT consumption levels, which may conflict with current assumptions. The as-a-service plan will bring the same agility and simplicity to the data center as cloud services, but will need to shift to an available cost structure, which may be very different from today's more commonly used capital expenditure patterns.

She says the IT department of a business organization must be able to translate investment in technology resources into an easy-to-use chargeback payment option.

"develop clear business-related metrics for all services and pay-as-you-go (pay-as-you-go) options so that the enterprise's IT team can easily assess how technology spending can affect the enterprise's business results." Middleton suggested. "in addition, technology and service providers are required to explain how their consumption-based products will affect short-term and long-term costs."

3. Software-defined IT will benefit the enterprise edge data center

Vilars focused the discussion on the trend area of software-defined IT models, reiterating that more than 50 percent of IT infrastructure in data centers and edges will be migrated to software-defined models over the next two years to achieve the required agility and efficiency-which will have a significant impact on how enterprises operate their data center operating environments.

"they don't just use software-defined models or test all kinds of things for their point systems. They are fully committed to building software-defined models into the current and long-term architecture of their enterprises." Vilars said to these forerunners.

At this level of commitment, he says, software-defined models will emerge as key accelerators to drive further IT deployments at the edge.

"these organizations are gaining real value by adopting software-defined models and will increasingly deploy IT assets to the edge." Vilars said. "this provides a better, more stable and standardized basis for them to start providing new digital-based business services to their companies' factories, hospitals, retail facilities and airports."

One of the current challenges facing IT corporate organizations will be related to the lack of relevant talent. "this only leads to a shortage of relevant emerging skills in IT corporate organizations." Vilars said.

As current IT enterprise organizations begin to consider how to adopt a software-defined infrastructure within their enterprise organizations and across their data centers and edge environments, they urgently need to train their employees in service business process scheduling, deployment and configuration automation of business processes, and asset recovery skills.

Especially in the area of asset recovery, better asset recovery must be carried out if business organizations need to make full use of underutilized assets.

"Software-defined infrastructure makes it easier for enterprise organizations to deploy assets and infrastructure, but it should also make it easier for enterprise organizations to recycle assets in the infrastructure. This has always been a major drawback of current IT enterprise organizations."

4. Intelligent Edge data Center called at any time

According to Cook, edge computing will have a profound impact on the development of core data centers.

Providing IT services at the edge requires a more autonomous IT. Edge resources will be more intelligent, can be managed remotely, and perform self-repair. As current IT enterprise organizations begin to experiment with smarter technologies at the edge, they will recognize the benefits of adopting this extended intelligence across all data center resources. "this advantage has become a necessary condition for the current IT enterprise organizations to implement remote management." Cook said.

"We believe that investment in intelligent technologies at edge locations, including resource standardization, as well as smarter technologies, will actually drive greater adoption of emerging technologies in enterprises or core data centers."

For IT teams organized by enterprises, this means that more standardization and instruments will be placed on the edge. IT skills will continue to evolve to meet this new model and will be more focused on using data and analytics to drive better resource utilization of data center facilities. "Cook said.

At the same time, IT enterprise organizations will procure high-quality resources through service providers and hosting service providers. "this will require data and management skills and expertise, as well as expertise in managing partners and contracts, which may be beyond the knowledge reserves of IT enterprise customers today."

IDC suggests that IT leaders of enterprise organizations urgently need to develop a workflow system to achieve better coordination among key facilities, IT and the network. Cook said it was also important for corporate customers to work with suppliers who could provide higher levels of visibility and control. "these partners have the ability to provide real-time data information about capacity, current status, efficiency and costs, which is critical for decision makers in business organizations to make decisions about the best arrangements for data centers and workloads."

For the vast majority of current IT enterprise organizations, they either need to retrain their existing data center staff or hire new data center staff in order to take full advantage of the digitization of their data center resources.

Although standardized and smarter data centers will be able to operate more autonomously, the reality of complete remote control management (LOM,Lights-out management) in all enterprise data centers still has a long way to go. Therefore, on a global scale, there is still a need for operational staff with appropriate expertise to carry out long-term day-to-day operations and maintenance work in the actual location of the data center. " Cook said. "in the near future, we hope to see more augmented reality technologies to support the management of marginal resources."

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