latest thinking
Big Gets Bigger, Smaller Gets Smaller
The data centre market is entering a period of unprecedented transition.
With this shift comes a number of
significant – and perhaps surprising –
changes. Smaller, enterprise-owned data centres are shrinking in size. At the other end of the scale, mega-facilities continue to grow. What are the dynamics behind
this evolution, and how can you
capitalise on it to position your business for success?
‘The data centre
market is entering
a period of
unprecedented
transition.’
latest thinking | Big Gets Bigger, Smaller Gets Smaller
Big gets bigger: the rise of the mega data centre
Small gets smaller: the evolution
of the business response centre
Today’s large data centres, typically owned by industry and cloud-provider heavyweights,
see nothing but growth on the horizon.
They’re becoming ‘uber-environments’, some
sprawling over hundreds of thousands of
square metres. According to Kevin Leahy,
Dimension Data’s Group General Manager
for the Data Centre Business Unit, these
mega-facilities are expanding because they’re
either absorbing the capacity transferred
to them from companies looking to exploit
the cloud model, or simply as a result of the
nature and complexity of the businesses
they serve. ‘The mega data centre business
model focuses on efficiency,’ he explains.
‘Their operators invest in the most advanced
technologies for power and cooling, so their
energy consumption per unit of computing
power is much lower than you could achieve
in your own data centre. eBay, for example,
has invested in “fuel cells” − devices that
turn fuel such as natural gas into electricity
through a chemical reaction.’
At the other end of the scale, smaller,
enterprise-owned data centres are
contracting and evolving into more efficient and agile business response
centres. Leahy explains this journey
of transformation: ‘Data centres have
typically been capex-intensive, 20-year
investments. Over the last few decades,
most organisations have found themselves
caught in a cycle of ongoing expansion
every few years, to relieve the pressure
on existing facilities that are starting to
bulge at the seams. As a result, the cost
of owning and operating traditional data
centre infrastructures has consumed the greatest portion of the average ICT budget.’
Mega data centres are typically built to the highest tier 3 availability standards and are located at the lowest latency
points in the network. This gives them an
advantage when it comes to availability
and network performance. They can also
scale impressively, the cost of adding a few
thousand users to a particular service or
application is minimal.
This cycle has abruptly – and permanently
– been brought to a halt by a number of
elements, including cloud, automation, and technology advancements.
Cloud is the master game changer. By
moving certain workloads to the cloud, you can deliver many of your business
services to users on an opex, pay-per-use
basis, as opposed to owning and operating
your own infrastructure. For example,
by moving workloads such as email or
backup and disaster recovery – which can
account for up to 30–40% of your overall
data centre capacity – to the cloud, you
can extend the life of your data centre
significantly and eliminate the need to
invest in additional facilities. The cost,
scalability, and agility benefits of cloud are
widely recognised and have fuelled its rapid
move into the mainstream.
Today’s large data centres, typically
owned by industry and cloud-provider
heavyweights, see nothing but growth on the horizon.
But that’s not to say there’s no longer
a place for on-premise facilities. The
technologies data centres use in order
to operate have advanced significantly
over the last decade. This means it’s now
possible to optimise the performance,
consumption, and adoption of your
existing infrastructure, and still keep
pace with ongoing data growth and the
ever-increasing demand for capacity.
According to Leahy, many businesses have overplanned their data centres. ‘Most companies’ existing data centre
capacity exceeds their projected needs
over the next three to five years. If you can
extract more value from the technologies
you have in place, it’s entirely possible to
shrink your data centre footprint.’
latest thinking | Big Gets Bigger, Smaller Gets Smaller
New tools, new ways of thinking
Converged infrastructures and
automation are key tools at the
disposal of IT leaders looking to
breathe new life into their onpremise data centre environments.
Says Leahy: ‘If you’ve automated
your environment, you no longer
need people manually operating
your facility. If you don’t have people
there, you can run it at a higher
temperature. Research indicates that
increasing the temperature at just
five degrees can result in energy cost
savings of up to 10%.’
Users – and their locations and work styles
– are other factors changing IT leaders’
thinking about modern enterprise data
centre approaches. Today, many employees
aren’t based at company headquarters.
Many are mobile workers; others are based
at home, satellite, or regional offices.
Businesses used to build data centres in
their office building to be close to their
employees, so that employees benefited
from optimal application performance.
Now, with modern applications being
standardised on new technologies, their
performance doesn’t depend on being
located in the same building, or indeed on the same continent, as the people using
them. You also have more connectivity
options: you can move your data centres to locations where the network services
can guarantee the same, if not better,
service quality than before.
Leahy argues that technology
advancements are allowing businesses to correct other flaws with the traditional
data centre facility location model. ‘From
a cost and efficiency perspective, there’s
never been a good reason to station your
data centre in your offices – these buildings
don’t have the appropriate power and
cooling, and air distribution facilities. Then
there’s the question of disaster recovery
– another weak point in the old model.
Having your servers in the basement of
the building makes them vulnerable, for
example in the event of flooding.’
Research indicates that increasing
the temperature at just five
degrees can result in energy cost
savings of up to 10%
latest thinking | Big Gets Bigger, Smaller Gets Smaller
Consider co-location
According to Leahy there’s another
option that should be considered
as part of a next-generation data
centre strategy: co-location. ‘Co-location involves placing your
assets in someone else’s data centre,
where they’re in close proximity to
the cloud,’ he explains. ‘The colocation provider is responsible for
providing infrastructure systems,
and for monitoring, power supply,
and temperature control. You
retain control of your servers, their
accessibility, and security.’
Co-location can address one of the
biggest concerns in moving to the cloud:
latency between your data centre and the
cloud. Co-location providers often have
to cross-connect to the cloud provider’s
infrastructure, so you benefit from a low-cost, high-performance connection between your assets and the cloud infrastructure.
Transform to better perform – steps to success
• Extend the life of your data centre by making better use of technology
advancements.
• Take advantage of cloud and automation.
• Bring the cloud and your data centre together to achieve optimal performance by:
–– optimising the network between your data centre and the cloud
–– uniting your data centre and the cloud in the same facility, via co-location
CS / DDMS-1693 / 06/14 © Copyright Dimension Data
For further information visit: www.dimensiondata.com
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