How clouds have changed the architecture of data centers

/ photo Intel Free Press CC

Trends associated with changes in cloud technologies and data centers speak for themselves.
')
We in 1cloud are working on our own cloud service and cannot ignore the changes. According to Gartner, in 2016 cloud resources will account for a significant part of the budget expenditures of most IT companies, and Cisco says that by 2018 78% of computing tasks will be handled by cloud-based data centers.


Expressing his expert opinion, Bill Kleiman says that the continuation of cloud evolution towards a more flexible and efficient use of resources puts the data center and infrastructure at the center of attention - buildings and servers that need to be maintained and controlled. All this requires special knowledge and people - the “architects” who manage this infrastructure.

Of course, the "cloud" has seriously affected network solutions, increasing the dependence of many companies on the work of data centers. According to Statista.com, just a couple of years ago, in 2012, the annual volume of data center traffic was 1 exabyte, and in 2015 it approached 3 exabytes. Experts predict that in 2019 data center traffic will be 8.6 exabytes per year.

In such a situation, data center architects need to be able to correctly assess the load at the design stage. Too massive infrastructure at the launch stage may simply not be profitable for the company and it will simply “warm the air” in the data center. The specialist must determine the balance of resources for providing power, cooling, public services and advantageous pricing for the services of the organization.

Working with converged systems and multi-tenant platforms requires ease of scaling and cost-effectiveness. This can be achieved only through constant rethinking of approaches to building architecture, risk planning and new types of applications, which are also related to customer requests.

If you look at the physical infrastructure, you need to talk about new types of servers and more efficient racks. Bill stresses that the concept of convergent infrastructure has given data center architects new opportunities to create technological ecosystems.

At the same time, a large number of commodity technologies and medium deployment methods, the concept of “free cooling” and energy management techniques appeared. All this requires that architects have knowledge and experience with various options for building infrastructure.

The new level of requirements means ensuring maximum availability of all services. To do this, you need to constantly work on DevOps and use modern data center infrastructure management tools ( DCIM ).

According to Bill, data center architects are the building blocks of the cloud computing industry. We are confident that changes in the field of IT infrastructure are interdependent - a breakthrough in one of the areas entails a series of other events. Ultimately, all efforts of specialists are aimed at improving the competitiveness of cloud services for customers by upgrading and optimizing existing solutions.

PS Additional materials on the topic - on the site 1cloud in the News and blogs section.