Miniature data centers are moving to the edge

　　With the continued development of cloud computing and edge computing, data centers are rapidly evolving. Cloud infrastructure significantly impacts the demands of modern data centers, and Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) business models and providers allow enterprises convenient access to remote servers.

　　Edge computing brings computation processes and data closer to end-users, who are typically located at the edge of the network. The impact of technologies such as the Internet of Things (IoT) and the reliance on real-time interactions are forcing data centers closer to end-users.

　　Enterprises are shifting from on-premises data centers to cloud data centers for deploying critical business applications, leveraging the advantages of both on-premises and cloud data centers to form hybrid cloud systems. However, traditional data centers now face numerous challenges.

　　Limitations of Data Centers

　　 1. Data Center Capacity. The COVID-19 pandemic disrupted traditional working patterns. The challenge lies in the need for data centers to scale their capacity to meet unpredictable and growing demands.

　　 2. Evolving Market. The value of data is now recognized worldwide. As a result, governments, industries, and consumers alike desire secure data centers within their countries. This makes it more difficult for established data center players who wish to expand into foreign markets and gain market share.

　　 3. Impact on Climate Change. According to a 2018 study, data centers consumed 1% of the total electricity used that year. The carbon footprint of data centers is constantly growing. Consumers are not only aware but also heavily involved in environmental issues. Energy management becomes an added dimension of competition among competitors. Therefore, data centers must adopt alternatives to high energy consumption.

　　Is the Era of Micro Data Centers Here?

　　Edge computing is gaining traction across many industries. As more and more businesses embrace the cloud, data centers are becoming less centralized. This decentralization presents opportunities to bring cloud services closer to the edge of the network. The drawbacks of hyperscale data centers also need to be overcome. Micro data centers aim to be the next step in data center evolution.

　　Micro data centers are small, modular data centers that serve enterprises or provide resources that large, modular data centers cannot easily provide. Micro data centers can also solve problems that traditional data centers cannot.

　　Data Centers vs. Micro Data Centers

　　A container-based data center might represent dozens of servers in a 40-foot container. The latter might have fewer than 10 servers in a box of approximately 20 inches. The footprint of a typical data center is significantly reduced. Furthermore, the network infrastructure of micro data centers is concentrated at the edge because computation is handled locally. This is unlike developing network infrastructure around centralized, remote data centers, designed to receive workloads from end-users.

　　A good use case for micro data centers is to support future IT infrastructure. Micro data centers will drive the continued increase in machine-generated data that needs to be aggregated near the source. They will also play a key role in enabling end-to-end 5G connectivity, as the short wavelengths of 5G require very close proximity between base stations and data centers to support critical applications in real-time.

　　Benefits of Micro Data Centers

　　 1. Reduced Costs. With micro data centers, enterprises do not have to concentrate upfront capital expenditure on traditional server hardware. The operational expenditure of micro data centers is significantly lower compared to enterprise data centers. Furthermore, the reduced distance between client and server machines reduces the higher electricity costs associated with transmitting computation to a centralized data center.

　 　2. Local Computation. Micro data centers reduce the geographical distance between client and server machines. The reduced proximity significantly reduces latency.

　　 3. Small Footprint. Micro data centers have a significantly lower carbon footprint compared to large data centers.

　 　4. Greater Resilience. Traditional data centers often face the risk of service disruption if priority lines are damaged. Even with network redundancy measures in place, traditional data centers struggle to compete with micro data centers in terms of options during failures. Micro data centers may have dozens of failover strategies.

　 　5. Flexible Infrastructure Approach. Enterprises can scale their data needs up or down based on demand. The scalability of micro data centers makes them easy to align with enterprise goals.

　　What Does This Mean for Enterprise IT?

　　1. IT managers can rest easy knowing that operational costs are reduced and overall efficiency is improved. Micro data centers also align with an enterprise’s carbon reduction goals.

　　2. Micro data centers may not require employee supervision compared to traditional data centers. Knowing that the likelihood of human-caused downtime is significantly less, IT managers can have peace of mind.

　　3. It fosters innovation among enterprises as they can provide and improve services based on applications that cannot run on large or remote data centers.

　　4. Micro data centers also allow enterprises to choose which workloads to process offsite and which not to. Critical workloads that need local computation can be done locally. For example, enterprises in remote locations that require local computation can easily be served by micro data centers. Enterprises can also dabble between cloud data centers and micro data centers, flexibly adapting to their needs.

　　5. IT managers also enjoy higher security. Enterprises have less control over offsite data and workloads, which is often a concern for IT.

Article Source: Data Center Operations Management

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