37
NETWORKING
37
Locate anywhere Fridström claims that fibre optics now make it possible to build and locate a data centre anywhere . In my view you can now create global access to data centres to mitigate disaster recovery ( DR ) geographical constraints . In doing so it becomes possible to move computing closer to the consumer , and perhaps even closer to the edge . However , the speed of light is finite ( at the moment ) and that can cause issues , making it harder to move volumes of data between data centres . Network latency and packet loss remain issues that can diminish data centre performance .
Many organisations fail to factor in the effect of the speed of light when designing geographically dispersed solutions . For high-speed trading platform data , the distance between data centres affects the time between transactions . However , for low-speed transactional data composed of a small number data packets a few milliseconds of delay isn ’ t critical .
Data accelerate When transferring large volumes of data such as workloads or backup as a service transactions latency and packet loss is a massive throughput killer . You can ’ t make the speed of light go faster , so you must find another way around the problem . Data acceleration solutions such as PORTrockIT , through the use of parallelisation and AI , can have a dramatic effect on restoring data throughput . Unlike WAN Optimisations they can also permit encrypted files to be transmitted securely at speed between data centres that are located outside of their own circles of disruption .
WAN Optimisation solutions often can ’ t deal with encrypted data , requiring the data to often be sent unencrypted to ensure that a speedier data transmission can be achieved . Moreover , while WAN Optimisation and SD-WAN vendors often claim they deal will latency , they often don ’ t sufficiently make a difference to network performance at higher WAN speeds that are now available . In contrast , data acceleration solutions use machine learning to mitigate the effects of data and network latency . With them , the possibility of having optimised data centres and disaster recovery sites in different parts of the world , with the impact of latency being much reduced , becomes more feasible .
New opportunities Lower costs create opportunities for designing , managing , and operating on-demand cloud computing resources . Indeed , with service providers now thinking globally , fibre opens up a whole range of opportunities for organisations both large and small . Many still believe that public is the only cloud model available . However , the larger organisations with virtualised , distributed data centres are linked with high-speed fibre . So , they can create their own cloud infrastructure for cloud storage and cloud computing . This nevertheless will leave the debate about whether it ’ s cheaper for them to outsource to third-party data centres , or whether it ’ s cheaper to have their own data centres . So , with the changing datacentre in mind and the need for data acceleration still being important , here are my top tips :
• Understand the performance and latency requirements of your applications , be these databases , DRaaS or BaaS of end-user application
• Employ data acceleration solutions such as PORTrockIT and to lower the SLA requirements of your WAN in terms of latency and packet loss SLAs
• Remember that using SD-WANs is a great idea for managing WANs , but they won ’ t fix the latency and packet loss issues
• Software-defined open source network software can considerably reduce both capital and operational costs
Future gazing Predicting technology over a ten-year period is a dangerous as spinning on a dime . However , looking forward at some of the current trends it becomes possible to theorise about the future from what ’ s currently seen within today ’ s market . Firstly , with ever-increasing data volumes , data centre power and energy consumption are bound to increase exponentially . This will generate a great deal of heat too , which could be used to heat homes . But , data centres are going to have to think of ways to tackle the greenhouse gases .
Increased fibre coverage and performance networks allow data centres to be placed pretty much anywhere , but rural areas are still not having their needs met in many countries . This means that data centres are likely to remain within the vicinity of urban areas . However , improved government investment in network infrastructure could enable more data centres to be located in cheaper and less urbanised areas – whether that be in the UK or elsewhere in the world .
It ’ s also worth remembering that the web is the cloud , with all this interconnectivity it will be possible for anyone and everyone , not just large data centres , to supply spare storage and compute capacity to a commodity brokerage the same way the electricity is bought and sold now . So , the changing data centre may find that it faces an increasing amount of untraditional competition in the future – offering more choice to organisations and to the consumer .
The changing data centre will also be increasingly software-defined , hyperscaled and virtual . With the ascendency of artificial intelligence and software-defined infrastructure , there will be massive requirements for compute power . It will create the opportunity to have hyperscaled and virtual computer spread across multiple data centres . This will solve many of the complex issues that people today think of as being impossible to resolve . So , it ' s safe to predict that the ongoing impact of the changing data centre and of lower networking costs will eventually make the impossible , very much possible to achieve . n
www . networkseuropemagazine . com