M O D U L A R D ATA C E N T R E S
The Future
xxxxxxx of Modular Data Centres
Make Mine Modular
By Leo Craig, General Manager, Riello UPS Ltd
Introduction
According to new research, the
worldwide market for modular data
centres is set to treble in size by 2020.
The report from Markets and Markets
predicts growth from $8.37 billion in
2015 to $35.11 billion in 2020. So, what
does the future hold for this trend?
The Cloud Revolution
Leo Craig outlines a
favoured solution to the
traditional data centre.
Some say the 1970s and 1980s were
the era of electronics development
and the 1990s the age of software
development. So, what do we call the
2000s and beyond? Many believe this
is the era of cloud data as we live in a
world with vast amounts of information
being stored, managed and processed
in the cloud. Consumers are becoming
more information hungry than ever devouring social media applications,
shopping, banking and working online,
but as the sheer amount of data
increases, so does the strain on the data
centre. Today’s data centre must provide
a robust infrastructure to handle this
information while remaining flexible,
resilient and reliable enough to cope
with demand.
The Future Data Centre
The UK will be the biggest market
in Europe for data centres by 2020,
according to a report by the Tariff
Consultancy Ltd. It also predicts that
data centre space and power in Europe
will increase by almost 20 per cent
from 2015 to 2020. The surge in the
number of data centres makes it even
more essential to have the right mix of
cutting edge design and technology to
ensure constant availability. Ultimately,
data centre owners are looking for the
best solutions to help them achieve their
three main driving factors - flexibility,
efficiency and availability. Innovation
is key, as Google demonstrated by
building a $600 million data centre on
the site of a recently closed coal-fired
power station in Alabama – making use
of some of the power lines left by the
station and buying renewable power.
So, in a scenario of data centre
space, the ability to deploy smaller
scale, but highly reliable data centres
will become more important. IT
managers increasingly demand powerful
servers and on demand scaling. These
demands, particularly for scaling,
have led to the development of new
technology such as modular design data
centres and related equipment such as
Uninterruptible Power Supplies.
Why Modular Design?
By simple definition, a modular data
centre is a portable method of deploying
data centre capacity and offers an
alternative to the traditional data centre
because it can be placed anywhere
data capacity is needed. So, what is it
about modular that’s so popular? The
Markets and Markets report goes on
to say: “A modular data centre helps
businesses and organisations increase
their overall computing performance by
optimum utilisation of storage elements,
network resources, virtualisation
A surge in the number of data centres makes it even more essential to have the right mix of cutting edge design and technology.
10 NETCOMMS europe Volume V Issue 4 2015
www.netcommseurope.com