A new look for data centres in 2021

A convergence of technologies and trends means that data centres are going to look quite different this year. The pandemic has established a new baseline for computing infrastructure, with increased emphasis on the cloud, new server architectures and at the edge.

"With digitalisation comes increased data-powered workloads. Moving into 2021, data will need to be managed and analysed in real-time at the edge and in the cloud. We’ll see even more investments in distributed technology infrastructure – but it has to be simpler and faster to deploy," noted Eric Goh, VP & MD, Singapore, Dell Technologies.

"This shift creates momentum for hybrid cloud operating models that extend out to the edge beyond the traditional data centre to deliver consistent experiences and innovation for their business."

According to Goh, organisations’ top IT priorities in 2021 are focused on the enablement of learning and working from home, with automation and agility required across technology solutions for consistency and operational resilience. "This cuts across industries and both the private and public sectors," he observed.

A year of even more cloud

Goh predicted that investments in cloud operating models and data centres that span public, private and edge environments will continue to grow in 2021, enabling rapid scale and management of IT everywhere.

"Cloud – inclusive of multiple public, private and edge clouds – becomes a way of doing business and further defines the IT experience. Organisations will increasingly expect to consume IT much in the way they’ve consumed public cloud services – orderable and scalable with a few clicks, providing more options and less complexity. Acquiring IT anywhere as-a- service means simpler and faster choices for organisations to meet the demands of their digital present and future," he said.

Matthew Oostveen, CTO, Asia Pacific & Japan, Pure Storage, said that distributed/edge cloud architectures are an emerging technology to watch. "While distributed/edge cloud architectures are still largely in the planning and testing phase, 2021 will be a foundational year for this emerging and vital cloud model – driven by the rapid expansion in 5G and IoT-connected devices, sharp increases in edge-created data sources and Kubernetes as the standard for microservices application orchestration," he said.

"Distributed cloud is described by Gartner as the first cloud model to incorporate physical location of cloud-delivered services. This model will enable enterprises to manage disparate components across multiple clouds, unlocking the potential to deploy more highly customised IT services with the added benefit of extracting value from data sources in edge locations. Industries such as mining, oil & gas and utilities – those with high levels of IT/OT convergence and large quantities of data creation occurring in remote and regional locations – will be among the first to derive value from the distributed cloud."

IoT stands for the Internet of Things, while IT/OT refers to information technology and operational technology.

Going from compute-centric to data-centric

"Originally, the CPU* was the centre of the data centre – running the operating system, applications, managing memory, storage and the network. Moore’s Law had enabled the CPU to keep up, but advances have slowed, and virtualisation and the use of containers are pushing the CPU to the limit. Managing increasing volumes of data and new data sources is also further taxing CPUs," said Pratyush Khare, APAC CTO, Hitachi Vantara.

"As organisations place greater emphasis on the importance of data and extracting value from their datasets, we should look towards offloading the management of storage, network, and data security needs from the CPU so that they can instead be focused on managing virtualisation, containers, artificial intelligence (AI) and application processing.

"The move to offload data management functions has already begun with the introduction of Smart NICs and FPGAs. Hitachi Vantara’s Lumada platform is also an example, as it offloads the integration and management of IoT data and makes the processing of IoT more efficient – IoT is data-centric.

"NVIDIA has already named this new processing function, dubbing the concept 'DPU' or data processing unit. According to NVIDIA, 'The CPU is for general purpose computing, the GPU is for accelerated computing and the DPU, which moves data around the data centre, does data processing'. We expect that the concept of DPUs will continue to gain prominence in 2021 as vendors build out the system."

Smart NICs refer to network interface cards that can take over some server CPU functions, increasing network and application performance. FPGAs are field-programmable gate arrays, chips which can be programmed. Blurring boundaries between memory and storage

Beyond the CPU, GPU and DPU, things are also converging at the storage and memory level. Dell Technologies has seen memory that can be used as storage, and vice versa, and Raj Hazra, Micron Senior VP of Emerging Products & Corporate Strategy concurs. "Memory will extend into multiple zones—and will become a shared resource. And storage and memory will merge. You’ll no longer think “DRAM for memory and NAND for storage,” because faster NAND will create the ability to use it as memory," he said.

"The age-old demands of 'let's get one more generation of faster DRAM' or 'let's get less costly memory at higher capacities' are going away. As data demands complexify, we’ll see enterprises asking, 'Can we get memory with half the power of DRAM' or 'Can we get memory with a different interface to be pooled amongst servers?' The real interest is in innovation beyond CPUs and GPUs. In 2021, we’ll see enterprises seeking new kinds of solutions such as storage-class memory and memory virtualisation to meet these evolving needs."

Connecting the edge

Data centres will have to maintain connectivity even at the outer edges of their networks as expectations of non-stop connectivity grow everywhere in the world, Vertiv said. “Data centres have been moving toward public utility-type status for some time, but the pandemic has crystalised the need to establish the kinds of official guardrails that have been commonplace across other utilities,” said Gary Niederpruem, Chief Strategy and Development Officer for Vertiv.

“This isn’t just about working from home, although that is part of it. More importantly, it is about supporting the digital economy in its most mission-critical forms, which include increased reliance on telemedicine and health, enhanced e-commerce, and global telecommunications and mass media.”

Source: Ciena. Changaroth.

Anup Changaroth, CTO, Asia Pacific and Japan, Ciena, said that the 2020 demand surge for connectivity because of the shift to remote working and learning had placed unexpected pressure on the networks. "Driven by the need to get data and applications closer to end-users, 2021 will see an even greater focus among businesses to invest in the 'Edge Cloud'," he said. 

According to Ciena, the need to get data and applications closer to stakeholders will drive the need for tens of thousands of scaled-down data centres at the edge of the network to supplement traditional data centres that comprise the cloud as we know it. This Edge Cloud will allow organisations to deliver resource-heavy, cloud-native applications with ease.

"As companies in Asia continue to adopt cloud services and mobile devices to consume content and data to ensure business continuity, critical industries such as manufacturing and automotive are also leveraging cloud-native applications that are more compute-intensive and latency-sensitive. This means compute and storage cloud resources need to move closer to the edge of the network, in order to meet and deliver expectations for quality of experience," Changaroth concluded.

EfficientIP predicts more activity at the edge in 2021, helped by containers which can bring computing resources closer to the end-user, reducing latency and improving bandwidth. "Cloud computing providers who want to differentiate themselves will look to offer their own edge solutions, as will 5G telcos who will deploy infrastructure for their network operation and prepare private slicing offers. Edge networking, edge computing and the adoption of containers as a resource-sharing capability offer real opportunities for adding more elasticity and dynamic scalability to physical and virtual machine capacities," the company said.

Ronan David, VP of Strategy at EfficientIP added: “As we think about edge, we should also think about DNS services at the edge. It offers a number of benefits, including increased velocity and lowered response time, which can allow for new usages like communication between IoT devices for smart cities or utilities. This will enable so many other future capabilities.”

David Hughes, founder of Silver Peak and Senior VP of the WAN business at Aruba, said that the edge is the pivot point for wide-area networking (WAN) and security transformation and is at the centre of three architectural shifts. 

"First, SD-WAN provides cloud-first connectivity and steering in accordance with business policy or intent. Second, SASE provides a better and more direct way to connect users to business applications. Finally, SD-Branch will become increasingly important to simplify the branch as IoT adoption accelerates. SD-Branch will enable enterprises to implement consistent role-based policies that tie together identity, device and application, extending control from the wired and wireless edge, to the WAN edge appliance and across the wide-area network. The coupling of SD-WAN, SD-Branch and SASE will significantly enhance security posture and yield operational efficiencies," he explained. SASE stands for secure access service edge. A more powerful edge

Vertiv’s experts further anticipate a continued focus on bringing hyperscale and enterprise-level capabilities to the edge. Such capabilities will include greater intelligence and control, an increased emphasis on availability and thermal management, and more attention to energy efficiency across systems.

“Critically serving communities and businesses, alongside electricity, gas and water, data centres will have a utility-like status,” said Tony Gaunt, Senior Director Colocation, Cloud, BFSI Asia & India at Vertiv.

“Hyperscale cloud providers are offering organisations across Asia-Pacific the vital flexibility and scalability to manage an everchanging and moving business environment. While remote work was initially mandated due to the pandemic, it has already become a semi-permanent fixture in many workplaces. The need for low latency connectivity is no longer exclusive to large cities - we need on-the-spot processing at the edge, enabling businesses to be fully operational anywhere.”

Hughes of Aruba added that SASE would be significant in 2021. "If enterprises are to realise the full promise of the cloud and digital transformation while supporting a new work-from-anywhere normal, they must transform both their WAN and security architectures — not just one or the other. As the noise surrounding SASE subsides, the strategic imperative in 2021 will be to successfully navigate a path from legacy data centre-centric, perimeter security architectures toward a cloud-centric SASE architecture," he said.

"This will require an intelligent SD-WAN edge that unifies embedded security capabilities at the edge with automated orchestration and steering for leading cloud-delivered security services. Enterprises will value a neutral, non-captive edge as they simultaneously support their legacy security architecture, navigate towards SASE for an improved user experience, and to address security challenges associated with new IoT initiatives."

SD-WAN stands for software-defined wide-area network.

The role of AI

Hazra from Micron also highlighted a connectivity challenge for the edge. "The increase in artificial intelligence (AI) means that its increasingly important that edge computing is near 5G base stations. So soon, in every base station, every tower might have nodes (edge devices) in it. And there are lots of startups are focused on building edge data centres that look like transport containers that sit in metro areas to enable content—like your Netflix videos—to be closer to the consumption.

"We’ll see the adoption of these edge data centres in the next few years, as enterprises and consumers look to tap massive amounts of data for insight and faster services closer to the source."

As with Micron's Hazra, Dell's Goh added that a combination of AI, cloud and improved connectivity merge to improve user experiences. "AI will make PCs more seamless, customised and hassle-free. Intelligent software will help your device understand when you do and do not want to be seen in a videoconference," he suggested.

Hughes from Aruba further predicted the convergence of various software-defined silos to create a software-defined enterprise. "We have seen early steps with SD-Branch, which unifies SD-LAN, SD-WAN and branch security together under one orchestration framework. With the help of VXLAN meta data dynamic security, segmentation can be extended from the LAN across the WAN and into the data centre or cloud. With end-to-end automation, AI and role-based policy control driven consistently across remote sites, campus, data centre and cloud, enterprises will benefit from driving substantial gains in business efficiency and agility," he said. Outsourcing for success

Source: Telstra. Bates.

"Companies need time and resources to oversee the storage, physical security, maintenance and connectivity if they manage their IT hardware onsite. By outsourcing these services, businesses can get better control, flexibility and safety without the headache," suggested Todd Bates, Regional Lead South Asia at Telstra.

Some of the criteria for a good data centre partner include the capability to provide high-performance services and safe, reliable and dependable connectivity, Bates said. "We believe Asia will be a key focus area for business growth. Organisations hence need a trustworthy partner who understands the local landscape and allow them to easily expand and connect their businesses within Asia or grow their international presence," he added.

Sustainability

"In the data centre, the proliferation of data generation, consumption and storage has led to unsustainable energy usage. According to the US Department of Energy, data centres consume 10-50 times the energy per floor compared to the average commercial office building. That makes data centre-level green storage technology critical in reducing the complexity, expense, carbon footprint and component waste of the infrastructure that modern data requires. It’s simply no longer just about how much faster we can drive technology, but how we can deliver it sustainably for generations to come," said Oostveen of Pure Storage.

*CPU refers to central or computer processor/processing unit, the chip which traditionally controlled computing in hardware. The GPU or graphics processing unit was originally conceived to offload graphics-intensive operations from the CPU; it is currently also being used for compute functions. The DPU is a relatively new concept and designed to focus on the networking, storage and security aspects of data processing.