There’s a common problem faced by IT leaders in many organizations today. It’s the inability to scale their current data center environments according to business demands and needs. We all know that the trends that are driving up the demand for enterprise data center capacity – mobility, big data and the Internet of Things – aren’t going to disappear overnight and, if the current demands are anything to go by, the demand for capacity will only continue on an upward growth trajectory.
Colocation is readily becoming the go-to option for companies looking to address capacity constraints. According to 451 Research’s Datacenter Market Sizing Forecast Model, the colocation market grew 11 per cent year on year on a square footage basis in Q1 2015 and is forecast to maintain that growth rate through 2018. This is great news for companies like IO but colocation is more than just about scaling capacity. The decision to switch to a colocation model is about improving efficiency and increasing the flexibility of an organization’s data center to allow the firm to adapt easily to business changes. Unfortunately the majority of colocation data centres, both past and present models, do not easily improve efficiency or increase flexibility without a compromise elsewhere.
Getting the basics right
If you’re looking at exploring a colocation offering, always ensure that all the data center services are well covered. These include having reliable and resilient power and cooling capabilities in place to ensure always-on uptime and optimal performance.
Physical and cyber security are also key to keep your IT assets and applications. This could range from video cameras, to man-traps that are equipped with iris scanners to prevent impersonation and tailgating, and fire-rated walls and doors to protect against unforeseen disasters. On top of these, at IO Singapore we also offer a Disaster Recovery–as-a-Service (DRaaS) option to ensure that our customers have their data assets regularly backed up so that they can get their data back after a flood, a hack, or any other event that disables or destroys their primary data centre.
Another fundamental is carrier-neutral network connectivity that allows choice between multiple carriers. Your network needs to be able to extend private networks without using the public Internet, this allows for communications between multiple systems within the data center and also covers communications between colocation infrastructure and any end point, including other data centers and public cloud services. In a future post look out for IO’s evolution to a borderless data centre.
Advantages of software defined modular colocation
- Scalability as and when you need it
At IO, we genuinely believe that modular data center technologies are the way forward to help enterprises achieve a true transformation. Your modular data center colocation service provider should help you future proof your data center by offering standardized deployment solutions that meet the compute demands of today and beyond (why should you pay today for the possibility of needing 10kw per rack?). One key advantage of the modular form factor is thin provisioning of the data center – this means you don’t have to procure more capacity out of fear of the future because you can deploy the actual capacity required today and expand as needed in the same footprint.
- Operational efficiency with real savings
With modular data centers, you can achieve more efficient utilization of your data center infrastructure and eliminate the waste and cost that comes with underutilization. If you’ve ever run out of capacity in your data center before, you’re more likely to overcompensate and over buy capacity the next time you move to a larger data center. This impact’s your company’s capital directly because: 1) you end up paying for services that you don’t need, and 2) you spend more on the (direct or indirect), energy overheads.
Modular data centers can help mitigate this as they are by design, using technologies such as hot and cold aisle containment, incorporating variable speed air handling units and close coupled cooling (many of these features are add-ons in today’s colocation centres). The result? – Greater efficiency resulting in consistently lower PUEs, which means cost savings for your company.
- Keeping it safe and adaptable
Modular technology gives you security by providing a data center within a data center especially when each module is its own private steel vault.
Of equal importance is for any data center to be able to deliver an array of applications and services with different infrastructure requirements. With the demand for compute capacity both varied and increasing, there is a need for a colocation solution that caters concurrently for low and high density applications without compromising flexibility (scale up or down), and efficiency. The traditional raised floor environment becomes obsolete if your density profile is going to change over time.
- It’s all in the data and therefore the software
The traditional colocation model is designed and built starting with the building itself and its infrastructure - how to monitor, control, manage and optimize data is mostly an afterthought. Today at the “IT layer” we manage the movement of resources (workloads) through software between racks, within a data centre, and even between data centres. Without intelligence and feedback from the site, you would not have the visibility and control to ensure that your data centre is operating at maximum performance. Software is at the heart of all future data centres and the “bolt-on” DCIM approach that is undertaken by many colocation sites today is not the best way to optimize resources.
Sooner or later most organizations will need to scale their data center environments. When that time comes, I encourage you to take the strategic approach and consider creating a next generation data center with software defined modular colocation service that is truly scalable, efficient, secure, and software managed. By doing so, you will position your organization to intelligently manage the data center to drive more efficient operations and achieve improved performance.
Aaron Rasmussen, Site Director,DcaaS