Role of Data Centres and the Cloud infrastructure in 5G and the next era

Mumbai and Chennai, due to factors in favor of these geographies, will command 70 percent of the investments for Data Centers, says Sudhir Kunder

Data Centres and Cloud infrastructure ultimately support nearly all of the applications in today’s always-on environment. This was the focus of one of the panels at the Voice & Data Telecom Leadership Forum.

Eminent panelists, experts in the field who shared their views were: Vinay Jain, Director- Regional Sales, Service Provider Architectures, Cisco India; Dr. Sayed Peerzade, Executive VP & Chief Cloud Officer, Yotta Infrastructure; Sudhir Kunder, Country Director, DE-CIX Interwire India; Himanshu Gupta, Country Manager, Telecom Media & Entertainment, Hewlett Packard Enterprise.

Can India become a global data center hub?

“Holistically, the role of data centers has never been more important than what we have seen in the last 2-3 years. We are witnessing a big spike in incapacity. If we look at investments coming in, we can see that Mumbai and Chennai, due to factors in favor of these geographies, will command 70 percent of the investments. But we see a lot of growth for India – especially in rack power capacity” said Sudhir Kunder.

Data Centers would also play a bigger role with the hyper-scalers (that is the large Cloud infrastructure providers), increasing their activities and Cloud providers turning towards co-location footprints. The interconnection will play a critical role in applications in the new age.

Swift connectivity for service providers and Cloud players to data centers (DC) will be a key determinant for the success of DCS. “With less legacy infrastructure, we can leapfrog, integrate new technologies, and not be at a disadvantage as we were earlier, as compared to global counterparts,” said Sudhir Kunder.

When we think of 5G Cloud game-changers, we are looking at more industry collaboration, Edge applications becoming more dominant, cloudification of networks, Cloud playing a critical unifier’s role in enterprise digital infrastructure.

According to HPE’s Gupta, today there was cooperation between hyper-scalers and Telcos – but after five years, who will win the race – that would be something to watch out for.

The panel touched upon other possible ultra-low latency (critical) applications that will emerge and the role of Private 5G networks.

We have been exploring 5G with service providers and there have been lots of use-cases globally. 5G should start soon. The industry is getting its infrastructure ready. They have realized the transformation required at various layers in-network.

Cisco’s Vinay Jain explained that we are fortunate to be at the best of times to be able to leverage technology enablers and global supply chains. The global lessons from 5G can be available to India. The demand for fast deployment of Industrial IoT will be a big competitive advantage in the industry.

“As wireless technology expands, industrial IoT must learn how best to leverage this shift. We also see that businesses across the globe are investing billions of dollars in cloud-based transformation.

They are investing heavily in operational technology through wireless for improved productivity. Convergence is a big factor that allows for advanced analytics and automation for massive gains in efficiency and productivity – which has been seen by most early adopters. Ultra-low latency will lead to innovations in process control and automation in private networks.”

Whether 5G is likely to be launched soon.

It all depends on the auction of spectrum to operators and once that is done, the next steps would follow.

Vinay Jain of Cisco said “We have been exploring 5G with service providers and there have been lots of use-cases globally. 5G should start soon. The industry is getting its infrastructure ready. They have realized the transformation required at various layers in-network.”

“Lots of disruptions are going to happen for sure. We need to be prepared on the Edge side. And also enhance cloud capabilities to address the data flow in 5G. Over the next six months to a year, we will see the 5G revolution start in India,” said Mr. Peerzade.

Sudhir Kunder was of the view that 5G is not far off, and when it does happen, it will change the tech industry. “The kind of digital transformation journeys which we envisaged for our customers would only be possible when the entire roll-out happens.”

Himanshu Gupta traced the history of wireless networks.

5G was launched globally, it started somewhere in 2016 but if we look back; India was a laggard for 2G, 3G, and 4G. With 5G, we will be a tad late, but not so far behind. It is a big leap that will give immense opportunity for everyone to build an ecosystem in a very collaborative manner. Initial deployments would be around enhanced mobile broadband.”

Moderator asked the panel for their thoughts on disruptions brought in by edge computing in the area of data centers and Cloud.

Dr. Peerzade was of the view that the growing adoption of IoT, Industry 4.0 will drive Edge requirements. We will see more enhancements and a better user experience with the Edge revolution. 5G is definitely going to be a catalyst for Edge Computing. It presents a huge opportunity for data centers and cloud service providers to build strong Edge data center footprints. This will help everyone to use 5G technology to the fullest and cater to various regions across India.

Overall, we are in a sweet spot. The time to tap 5G for enhancing the Data Center and Cloud Services infrastructure could not have been better.