Intelligent Data Centres Issue 38 | Page 18

DATA CENTRE PREDICTIONS
– and data centres have continued gearing up for the impact .
We also saw an acceleration in migration to the cloud , and more Edge data centres are being built . IoT and ‘ smart everything ’ is driving the move to the cloud , and IoT use will continue to skyrocket . Reliance on AI ramped up to process increasingly large amounts of data for latency-sensitive applications . Finally , adoption of singlemode fibre accelerated because of the need to process more data more quickly .
Most people had expected to be back in hybrid work environments by mid-2021 , but we ’ re still largely using remote work styles . In fact , we may likely see remote work becoming a permanent work style for many .
Let ’ s look at these trends more closely .
5G will continue to ramp up
Service providers and private companies will continue to evaluate the most pragmatic ways to add capacity and capability into 5G deployment plans . In terms of its impact on the data centre , 5G promises faster access to information and that will drive more Edge data centre buildouts . More and more data are latency-sensitive and requires faster access , therefore , what we ’ re seeing is the migration from large core , small Edge data centre architecture to smaller core , larger Edge architecture .
Ehab Kanary , CommScope Infrastructure EMEA , Emerging Markets Sales VP
Cloud core 5G will expand data centre builds significantly in private companies . If you can build private 5G based on cloud architecture with local radios in the cloud , that ’ s a very data-intensive , latency-sensitive application and that will drive growth in data centres and Edge data centres as well . This trend will start in 2022 , but it will also rollout over several years as businesses work out getting the right to use 5G spectrum from carriers .
IoT will continue to skyrocket
IoT growth shows no signs of slowing . In fact , according to Statista , the number of IoT devices worldwide will almost triple from 8.74 billion in 2020 to more than 25.4 billion in 2030 . We foresee ongoing strong business investments in IoT . Managers are looking more closely at how they can run their businesses better – optimising shipping , for example – and putting sensors in the right places can help with that effort .
When it comes enabling the IoT and smart things , everything comes back to data . If you think about all the tiny data points involved in something as simple as a door sensor ( when is it open , when is it closed , is it locked or unlocked , who unlocked or locked it ) and you multiply that by the number of sensor applications ( temperature , occupancy , lighting , water usage , etc .) it ’ s all data that needs to be stored someplace and accessed by an application or user . The infrastructure that makes that work is all in the data centre .
In addition , we ’ re seeing that more and more data is time-sensitive and it needs to be processed at the Edge , so the IoT is also fuelling the growth in Edge data centres . Today , most of the Edge buildouts are being done by public cloud companies , and some providers are building Edge data centres for latency-sensitive applications like video . ( Consider the explosion in streaming video services as a core driver of this trend ). In fact , the biggest impact from IoT in the data centre will be video applications – entertainment , security monitoring , data mining and safety , for example . Companies need to store that data and act on it in real time , rather than analysing static data or photos .
Cloud migration will continue
Scalability and cost are driving people to the cloud . Analysts claimed that greater than 85 % of organisations will adopt a cloud-first principle and that over 95 % of new digital workloads will be deployed on cloud-native platforms by 2025 . When you can rent something and scale it within days versus planning and building something in years , that ’ s a compelling argument for the cloud . Both public and private cloud infrastructure will grow , with spending on public cloud services in the MENA region reaching up to US $ 5.7 billion in 2022 ( up by 19.2 %). Large enterprises will use a hybrid model , while smaller companies will use public cloud alone .
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