Trends 2016: The rise of data center technology

By Ravi Raj

The global trend toward the industrialization of the data center will continue to gain traction, and with this an immense possibility arises for enhancing efficiency of the businesses of data center and data center solution providers.

This year has seen many innovative developments meeting the challenges of data centers and the rise in adoption of cloud and virtualization has resulted in higher computing demand. This has created more pressure on networking solution providers to work on solutions which are supposed to support more servers along with neatly arranged cable management without hurting efficiency and productivity.

Keeping in mind the demand of the industry, companies are coming up with effective solutions and 2015 saw some of the most efficient innovations in this field. Introducing products with multiple “intelligent” features is one of them which proved reformative for IT managers and benefitted them to save energy, while maximizing efficiency and providing space availability by removing flaws of earlier solutions in data centers.

The basic challenges that data centers need to tackle in 2016 are power consumption and electricity cost; storage management and data protection; keeping a tap on maintenance and performance; cost of racks and server; and most importantly security as well as manageability.

The constant increase in network traffic and server density has led to various other challenges for data center solution providers linked with efficiency and productivity of systems. Apart from this, data center solution providers need to keep a tap on environmental factors and indulge in practice of creating solutions capable of reducing the amount of emissions.

All the major researches are predicting a major boost in data center technology in the coming year. According to a report from Navigant Research, the integrated data center is expected to be the next frontier for the intelligent buildings market. So, it is clear that the boost will play a major role in conceptualizing and developing intelligent solutions capable of removing glitches and focusing on maintaining security, manageability, serviceability and functionality at the same time.

The other factor which will play a bigger role in growth of this industry is government’s support for the technological innovations. With the new government in India, IT industry is keeping an eye on all the major initiatives and it is evident that this will provide a lion’s share to the IT industry as a whole. It will not only benefit the Indian companies but also provide many global players to expand their functions in India. This will increase competition among data center solution providers and no wonder will promote more innovative technologies in this field.

As the IT networking industry is expanding, there is a huge opportunity for many local and global players to spread out their dimension - not only region specific - but also there will be a vast opportunity to cover all verticals.

The prospect to drive the next data centers is to help ensure that the industry will meet the needs of today and the future.

(The author, Ravi Raj is Brand Head, Director - Sales & Support at NETRACK)