Learnings 2019 and trends 2020

By Anjani Kommisetti

Key takeaways from 2019
Hyperscale data centres:  2019 was the year of data centers. With the increasing focus on data localisation, we saw the growth of hyperscale data centers. Players like Amazon, Google, Facebook and Apple, have come to occupy a huge share in this market. Hyperscale data centers are now leveraging better, more succinct resources and scalability to meet the needs of the market. These low-density and high-quality models make sense for large companies that rely heavily on huge business applications and cloud services.

Edge data centres: Due to the rapidly changing data usage patterns, data centers have become a strategic asset for enterprises. Rising IoT devices are the primary reason for growth of edge data centers and 2019 saw quite a bit of growth in this area. Edge data centers allow organizations to be closer to device users; low latency improves performance while maintaining secure environment and we will see wider adoption of edge data centres in the coming years.

Projected trends for 2020
Storage: Data explosion is only going to explode a more with 5G coming in. From a data localisation perspective, storage will be one of the biggest challenges for India’s data center market. Imagine storage for billions of data points generated daily that need the right scalability and agility to be able to draw insights from it. Businesses have realised that for enhanced agility, they must move to software-defined storage (SDS) as part of their storage infrastructure. This will ensure that the most important data is held on their Storage Area Network (SAN) while the less important, unstructured data goes to the backend of the storage system. SDS works smartly by enabling dynamic storage adaptation and functions to gain control and efficiency over infrastructure capabilities.

Micro data centres: Rise of IoT and big data has increased the need for the micro data center environment. These are small and self-contained data centers, that are designed to manage wok offloaded from a larger data center as they contain the right infrastructure that is needed for smooth IT functionality. Edge computing will help utilize real-time analytics from IoT devices for faster decision-making, and deployment of micro data centers in closer proximity to these devices will allow faster processing speeds, reduced network traffic and in many cases, lower operating costs. As real estate, infrastructure costs continue to be a challenging for enterprises, more deployment of these data centers will be seen in 2020 and onwards.

Sectors that will see increased investments in data centers

• BFSI has always been one of the most technologically impacted sectors and rapid digitization has modernized this sector. As the sector focuses on more digital services rather than physical products, the data processing and storage requirements are also rising at exponential rates. To manage the rising requirements, more and more enterprises are expected to be moving to co-located data centers, as these offer high efficiency and large storage facilities at low costs
• Data centers in the government sectors have experienced slow growth in 2019. A lot of opportunities are in pipeline which are expected to take off in 2020, making this one of the biggest buyers of data centre tech in India. We already seeing a lot of traction in the central as well as the state governments who are undertaking rapid digitization and transition to cloud-based solutions. Growing investments in public sector seems promising, with initiatives like Smart City and Digital India pushing towards digital transformation

More data centres in Tier 2 cities: Tier 2 cities by large remain untapped markets. Now businesses have started to realise the potential these cities hold in terms of costs, being closer to larger consumers, etc. Pune, Bangalore, Hyderabad, Delhi, Noida, Gurgaon, Jaipur, Bhopal, Kochi are some of the cities that are coming up as preferred locations for setting up data centers.

Intelligent power monitoring: Agile data centers are the way of the future. By leveraging intelligent Power Distribution Units (PDUs), data center managers can monitor power consumption in a more accurate and real-time manner. This will allow them to recognize ghost servers and stranded resources that limit the data center efficiency. Smart PDUs offer data center managers the information they need to make smarter decisions, plan for future development, and build an agile data center by optimizing power and network resources. As energy costs rise continuously, enterprises are increasingly turning to solutions that help them manage power consumption efficiently.

SMEs gaining momentum: 2020 will be the year where SMEs will experience rapid growth. As businesses move towards cloud, core to edge, there is a requirement of edge infrastructure with architecture of edge computing in hybrid module. Data centers now come with an option of being customized as per the business requirement, hence more micro data centers will see wide deployment across SMEs and they will go with the ones that not only fit their capital expenditure but also complies with space constraints.

Way to Green Data Centers with DCIM solutions: Hyperscale data center construction has dominated the data center industry in 2019 and provided enterprises with an opportunity to adopt Data Center Infrastructure Management (DCIM) solutions, befitting their modern business and environment. With the help of DCIM solutions, 2020 will see enterprises designing smart data centers enabling operators to integrate proactive sustainability and efficiency measures.

The rise of hyper automation: 2019 has seen rising adoption of Robotic Process Automation (RPA) across various industries. Intelligence infused in automation through data science and analytics is leading to an era of hyper automation that will enable optimization and modernisation. It is cost effective too, but we need to watch out for the risks. 2020 will see enterprises evaluating risks and control mechanisms associated with hyper automation.

Moving to the edge: Coupled with the need to protect massive amounts of data and deliver quicker response time, edge computing became a necessity gaining wide adoption across industries in 2019. Data processing closer to the end device enables instantaneous actions and to decode, AI will come more to the fore improving the process further as a technology that matures when fed with more data.

(The author is the Country Manager – India and SAARC, Raritan & ServerTech, brands of Legrand)