Living in a digital era is connected to the regular use of network technologies to simplify everyday life and get wide opportunities for business development. Thus, the data center industry observes a robust growth rate. Moreover, this immense growth is observed in both professional and personal spheres.
As some expert portals claim, the expected growth of revenues in the DC market will be $99.97 billion by 2028 in comparison with $28.46 in 2023. This tendency is explained by the development of new technologies that enable and require greater efficiencies. The introduction of such technologies results in making upgraded business models and cloud service providers more available. These features make Network Infrastructure the most rapidly developing industry with a projected market volume of about $45 billion in 2023.
Key Trends Shaping the Data Center Landscape
Besides, the modern pace of life dictates its rules, resulting in bringing new tendencies to the counter. For example, the COVID-19 pandemic opened new opportunities for remote work and colocation. Trying to adapt to newly arisen economic challenges, organizations introduce improved ways of running businesses to meet market trends. Here are the major trends that affect the data center industry:
- gaining popularity in colocation, hyper-scale, and multi-tenancy;
- DC sustainability issues and related eco-friendly strategies;
- workload repatriation;
- data explosion;
- increase in outage expenses;
- expansion of automation;
- becoming waterless, where possible;
- high demand for edge computing;
- supply chain challenges.
Generally, the IT infrastructure will continue becoming more distributed with over 60% of enterprises being focused on local small- or mid-sized centers of data rather than traditional large-scale DCs.
So, in this data center industry overview, we’re going to concentrate on these tendencies and regard how they influence the market and workflow.
Hyper-scale & Colocation Cloud Capabilities
The pandemic forced businesses to adjust to a new world situation to continue activity, which led to remote workflow. Such a shift required high flexibility to allow organizations to scale their facilities effectively. In this situation, cloud colocation has come as an effective tool for data storage and sharing info between co-locators and colleagues. As for hyper-scale cloud computing, its popularity is going to improve over time.
Workload Repatriation
It remains unclear what work processes should run in private- versus public-cloud infrastructures. Here, such points as expenses and security come as significant ones. Trying to eliminate business expenses, enterprises stick to such repatriation.
Security concerns imply keeping data private and confidential by using private computing. This feature contributes to the faster development of private cloud computing to make the info more personalized and unavailable for unauthorized users.
Costly Outages and Increasing Reliability
According to research, 80% of DCs have faced outages in recent years. The cost of outages is about $100 000. This sum is going to increase with the years, meaning huge expenses for system outages. Yet, the Uptime Institute claims that it is possible to reduce the time and number of outages by implementing modern technologies by 79%. In trying to eliminate such expenses, administrators use advanced policies and processes for preventing system downtime.
Networking issues come as the main factor for system outages. Other popular problems include system and software problems caused by increased demand for cloud computing capabilities.
Another strategy to eliminate system downtime implies the reduction of human interference and the implementation of modern management tools for software monitoring.
Turning DCs Sustainable
Data centers are well-known due to their high demand for natural resources. Much energy and water are required to maintain their smooth and uninterruptible functioning. Thus, they leave a carbon footprint on Earth, significantly reducing the amount of natural resources. This is why administrators seek ways to reduce the amount of consumed resources. The following trends are observed:
- the integration of upgraded cooling systems, such as liquid cooling strategies, to replace air conditioning systems;
- deployment of DCs in colder areas to reduce the temperature and ensure optimal environmental conditions with the attraction of minimum devices;
- the introduction of renewable resources to cater to the needs of DCs;
- the use of chillers and other cooling tools;
- the installation of lithium-ion batteries.
Eco-friendliness is one of the main trends in data center industry growth since a great share of natural resources is left to power and service DCs.
Importance of Server Racks in DCs
A data center arrangement is an important task. Proper hardware allocation affects system operation since wrong placement can lead to overheating, damage, and other problems. Thus, server cabinets and racks are used for housing IT equipment. Benefits of specialized server furniture include:
- Security. Hardware is reliable fastened and installed; it is protected from unauthorized access by solid enclosures or removable metal panels, which guarantee better security and equipment protection.
- Easy access to devices and maintenance. The staff can approach all components from different sides and cope with duties effectively. Hardware maintenance, replacement, and examination take less time and effort.
- Better ergonomics. Due to multi-layer constructions of furniture, it is possible to allocate more devices on a small territory. Thus, room space is used more effectively.
- Optimal environmental conditions. Open racks use natural airflow to cool down hardware. Enclosed cabinets allow for installing ventilation devices to maintain the required environmental level.
A wide range of models allows for picking a suitable option for any system size, room, and budget. There are compact wall-mounted cabinets and huge floor-standing enclosures.
The Challenge of Exponential Data Growth
Data is the oil of the 21st century. Yet, the amount of data is limited to our processing capabilities. According to some estimates, the amount of produced data will be 572 zettabytes by 2030, which is 10 times more than we have today. But, note that we’re going to face a “digital wall” in the upcoming several years since the available infrastructures won’t be able to process such amounts of information. Thus, specialists are engaged in the development of new computing paradigms to process and store such huge amounts of data in the future.
Preparing for Future Challenges
We’re going to expect a rise in automation, data storage, and efficiency in the industry due to the introduction and implementation of new technologies. These include high-performance CPUs, advanced storage solutions, etc.
Enterprises will have to implement these solutions seamlessly to ensure step-by-step integration, better mobility, and smooth workload migration. This data center industry outlook shows that the IT sphere is experiencing a high-tech boom in terms of new technologies to satisfy the upcoming demands and provide businesses with the required computing capabilities.