OPINION
that notion to Hollywood for the time being, and simply
examine how the future will look and how it may impact on
everyone and their data.
The days of being tied to a single networking vendor
or technology are on the demise as Open Standards are
allowing separation of the network hardware and software
– which makes way for development of products that
are optimised for data centres. For example, they allow
for greater airflow through server components, which
enables them to be kept cooler. This will be a huge boon
going forward as we look to go totally green, as energy
consumption will be vastly reduced. We’ll take a closer look
at this later.
The Open Compute Project is already championing the
cause of making hardware more efficient, flexible and
scalable. And, if Facebook believes it to be worth signing up
for, then I can definitely see it has legs. Facebook recognised
the need to rethink its infrastructure to cope with the
unprecedented, huge demands of users. We should all follow
suit.
Speed will be another key driver as we look at what’s
next on the horizon. We’re witnessing interconnection
between systems increasingly dependent upon fibre rather
than copper cabling. Even 40G and 100G links over multiple
multimode fibre channels will give way to individual
singlemode fibre channels as the cost of transceivers
continue to reduce.
The drivers of change
One school of thought might suggest it’s people and
demand that’s driving change – but I believe it’s the
technology itself that’s creating the demand – in particular
the Internet of Things. The growth of the amount of devices
that can be controlled by users, from cars to home energy,
has increased slowly over the past 10 years, but will rise
considerably over the next 10.
Millennials are using multiple devices nowadays; we don’t
just see one device per household or employee. And, as
readily available devices designed to connect to the Internet
continue to emerge, this too will impact on data centres of
the future and the need to meet more complex demands.
How things are changing
Cloud and hybrid solutions are with us now, and will evolve
as we do. They will remain integral to managing our data,
but I see SaaS apps in the cloud in the future along with
virtual desktop infrastructures (VDI) as companies strive to
achieve reliable networking – anywhere and everywhere.
Cloud PBX is also set to revolutionise how we
communicate, anywhere and at anytime, and will change
the face of voice and data infrastructure. This is now a
multifaceted business as communications advancements
have moved on a long way from two people talking
together at either end of a wire. Two-way communication
in a business environment is being replaced by multi-site
conferencing.
The move to green solutions
Great strides have been made to ensure new data centres
are green. And as we move forward, this needs to be integral
without compromising speed, cost or efficiency. A key
feature of the Open Compute Project is to minimise the
environmental impact of data centre infrastructure. The
initial design stage does away with unnecessary features
and components that would waste manufacturing resources
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"Today, there’s more processing power in a
single handheld device than that which NASA
had at its disposal during the moon landings.
So, as this increase continues, where does that
leave our data centres in the future?"
and operating energy, even taking into account lower
transportation energy use due to reduced weight.
Data centres using these design principles can claim
extremely low Power Usage Effectiveness (PUE), which is
a measure of the data centre’s wastefulness or efficiency.
Operators are now competing to see how close to 1.00 they
can get – which would represent zero wasted energy – and
in turn represents a colossal benefit for all stakeholders.
The end game
Within a human occupied building environment, copper
structured cabling will continue to play an important
role – providing connectivity for the increasing number of
networked building control systems such as access control
systems, digital CCTV cameras, building management
systems and modern LED lighting panels.
Even wireless devices need wired access points to work –
and these are connected to the network and a power source
by the humble RJ45 plug, and a length of Cat6 or more
commonly Cat6a cable. Within data centres, connectivity
will become almost exclusively via fibre as speeds increase
and costs reduce.
Finally, and I know I said I’d leave it to Hollywood, but
this all assumes a human occupied building. My fear is
that in direct opposition to Moore’s Law that predicts the
exponential rise of transistors, we’ll see few humans in such
environments. n
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