We interviewed Cedric Escoriza, IT Manager and Cloud PaaS Specialist Consultant at Zemsania, about new developments in technology Cloud Computing and the future of Data Centers (CPD). Yesterday, a Technology Breakfast was held in Madrid organized by the Byte TI magazine in which prominent members of leading companies in the sector such as Dell, Intel, Lenovo and Econocom participated. As a guest, we would like to ask Cedric Escoriza what conclusions he has drawn from the round table.
This type of meeting is especially useful to learn about the reality of the technology market and its latest developments. As Cedric Escoriza comments, the roadmap for the next few years in terms of DPC is opaque and controlled by the leaders of the data center sector. However, by attending these meetings, “companies like Zemsania can know if they are heading in the right direction”.
What will the evolution of Data Centers be like in the next 10 years?
Although it is not common in Spain, the truth is that in the United States modular and containerized data centers are already a reality. In this case we are talking about an architectural level, through a storage system in which the servers can be expanded or reduced according to the client's needs.
To give you an idea, these are containers like those you might find in a seaport. The great advantage of this type of DPC is that obsolescence can be fought more easily. If before a Data Center could become obsolete in as little as 7 years, now its useful life can be considerably extended thanks to the possibility of adding new modules (and containers) according to new needs that may arise.
What has the explosion of Cloud Computing meant for Data Centers?
There has been a paradigm shift: The Cloud has inverted the classic pyramid in Data Centers. Now, it is the software that dominates the hardware, unlike years ago, where hardware was acquired first and the software was implemented with the limitations set by the hardware, with little room for maneuver.
For example: A company that has several containers can interconnect them with each other thanks to cloud computing. Therefore, it is the software that orchestrates the entire hardware installation, as is the case in the Web-Scale IT model.
Could Data Centers be made completely sustainable?
Although today's data centers are more energy-optimal, the truth is that there is still a long way to go to make them fully sustainable. The reason is simple: data centers will always consume energy and resources, even if they are becoming more and more environmentally friendly.
Intel, the world's largest producer of integrated circuits, has reached the CPU frequency limit with the technology currently available to us. So the big advances in sustainability are focusing on reducing the temperature (and thus consuming less power for cooling) as well as the CPU's own power consumption. Years ago, the average temperature of any server was around 50 degrees, and today it is down to 30 degrees.
Nevertheless, there are alternative projects to achieve more sustainable cooling. One example is Google and its DPC installed offshore. Although it saves costs and resources in cooling, it encounters other drawbacks such as humidity and salt.
How could the management of DPCs be streamlined?
One of the technological trends of the moment is the so-called Web-Scale IT, and the implementation of hyper-converged systems. A good example of this new paradigm is the use that the streaming platform Netflix is making of it. Through an Amazon Cloud solution, Netflix can manage its more than 60 million users efficiently and smoothly.
Another important point to take into account would be the introduction of DevOps teams with hybrid professional profiles, who know both development and operations. In this way, DPC optimization could be carried out in a much more agile way.
What formula are most companies using for offsite data centers?
Due to the reluctance of many customers to use exclusively a Public Cloud to store all their data, many companies opt for a Hybrid Cloud. This option consists of storing the most sensitive data in a private cloud (which is physically located on the company's premises, in the company's own datacenter or in an outsourced one) and data of less strategic importance in a Public Cloud (usually with a delocalized and distributed location).
The Hybrid Cloud thus has the benefits of both models. In the Private Cloud, on the one hand, it requires more technical knowledge when it comes to installation, although it is practical when it comes to controlling all the business data at 100%. On the other hand, the Public Cloud is much more flexible and requires less implementation time, although the company can never have the exact location of its data and its cost can skyrocket if not properly managed.