There is a Shift from Hardware-based Solutions to Software-defined Technologies: Vijay Kumar Mahalingam, VP - Technical Services, Rahi Systems

There is something big changing as we witness the rise of colocation data centers, modular solutions and pop-up centers. Is it due to Capex, due to hyper-scalers or due to the way data is being leveraged? Rahi Systems Vice President – Technical Services Vijay Kumar Mahalingam in an interaction with Pratima Harigunani helps us with some answers.

How much has the data center changed over the last ten years? What are the big ones, in your observation?

Data centers have witnessed some major changes in the past years. It has been moving from captive to co-location centers to cloud. There is a rapid growth of power density per rack – 3kVA per rack to 3kVA plus power density. There is also a shift from 1G/10G to 100G/400G and switch from copper to fibre, while there is a shift from hardware-based solutions to software-defined technologies. Data center cooling trends are also changing – switching from perimeter cooling to in-rack cooling. Besides, there is now a complete remote deployment of applications through embedded remote management solutions.

Have they reflected anywhere in any specific customer needs/demands too?

Adoption of third-party data centers such as colocation centers and hyperscalers have driven the majority of the change. These players have grown by expansion and acquisitions of several regional players. They are also early adopters of latest technologies in terms of implementing high density and scalable infrastructure solutions in areas like space, power, cooling and connectivity.

Is internet of things (IoT) going to have a big impact here?

With ever increasing number of connected devices powered by IoT, there is a huge surge of data resulting in localized processing of information since these data requisitions are local and because of immediate need in case of smart car, smart appliances, etc. Therefore, storage, backup and redundancy of data are going to further escalate the need for more data centers.

So the real estate of data centers is considerably different now?

The actual real estate of captive data centers is decreasing. More customers are moving toward co-location centers. These latest technologies are transforming data centers in terms of quick access to data, do more with less, less operational costs, agility to move between hardware platforms, higher Capex with lesser Opex, etc. At the same time trending technologies such as artificial intelligence (AI), machine learning (ML), trading, security, compliance, and proprietary information are pushing customers to adapt to a newer hybrid model which entails having local data on premise and rest on cloud.

What about forces like virtual machines (VMs), cloud workloads, modularisation, and localisation?

Yes, VMs, clouds, modular systems are the main drivers of the change since they help in utilizing full resources on the hardware platform. Modularization helps based on pay as you use concepts offering lesser Capex costs and simplified upgrade and maintenance. Given the global outcry on greenhouse effect and carbon footprints and given that the price of grid power are only rising with no sign of any reduction in the near future, it is time to relook at renewable energy sources as an alternative option for these data centers. Solar and wind power offer a safer, cleaner and abundantly-available alternative and this is expected to be the most sought-after option. Localization of data is again resulting in more pop-sites across the board.

How serious are challenges like data sovereignty here?

These are really critical issues in their own aspects and much discussed. Data sovereignty and localization is creating more data centers and more complexity in managing multiple data centers.

pratimah@cybermedia.co.in