Intelligent Data Centres Issue 08 | Page 32

EDITOR’S QUESTION one of the key areas – cooling. With a digital twin in use, those managing a data centre (DC) can better plan layout changes and greatly reduce the risk that a new cage or rack will lead to an outage or great inefficiencies. MARK FENTON, PRODUCT MANAGER AT FUTURE FACILITIES utting key infrastructure in the hands of an Infrastructure-as-a- Service (IaaS) supplier can provide a number of benefits to a business including reducing costs and adding flexibility. For an organisation looking to make this switch though, the key area to look at is reliability. With so much dependent on having infrastructure up and running 24/7, the impact of an outage or downtime is huge and can result in lost customers, sales and revenue. P To help mitigate the chances of an outage, organisations need to look for IaaS suppliers that use a digital twin in their planning and operations which can help reduce the risk of downtime from 32 Issue 08 WITH SO MUCH DEPENDENT ON HAVING INFRASTRUCTURE UP AND RUNNING 24/7, THE IMPACT OF AN OUTAGE OR DOWNTIME IS HUGE AND CAN RESULT IN LOST CUSTOMERS, SALES AND REVENUE. In fact, recent independent research commissioned by Future Facilities found that DC businesses that use a digital twin are three times more likely to not suffer an outage at all. By better planning designs and deployments, both IT and facilities teams can collaborate on deployments and the running of a data centre to help reduce the chances and risks of a possible outage. Looking to the future and with the advent of 5G, we could even see more providers offering IaaS. For example, with the need for more cell sites and Edge data centres to support 5G, mobile operators may soon become IaaS providers themselves. In doing so, mobile operators can unlock the extra value of their own networks and provide a new service to business customers. However, just as with DC operators, network operators will also need to ensure that they can provide a strong, reliable service to their customers or risk quickly losing trust. By carefully modelling Edge data centre setups with a digital twin, network operators too can reach the reliability level they need for cooling without adding extra and unnecessary costs. ◊ www.intelligentdatacentres.com