New demands for data centers in the cloud computing age

New demands for data centers in the cloud computing age

As the information technology industry enters the cloud era, data centers also face many new demands in terms of construction and management. Cloud computing's requirements for data center infrastructure are mainly reflected in several aspects, including reduced operating costs, flexibility including resizing and contraction, and new demands for software-defined data center management, and the new transformation of the data center business model.

 

I. Flexibility

For a new business such as cloud computing, there is a risk of investment direction in individual construction. If the actual application does not reach the expected design capacity, in extreme cases, investors may even consider removing the data center. At this time, we put forward new requirements for infrastructure, that is, how to design a data center that can be migrated. The data center that can be migrated here is not a container data center, but all the data centers are relocated or even removed, and then re-installed at another site. How to efficiently remove, transport, and re-assemble data centers must be flexible, fast, and effective. This will soon become a new demand for data centers.

Ii. Software Definition

Cloud computing also puts forward new demands for data center operation management, the so-called software definition. Its fundamental goal is to save energy. In terms of infrastructure, the former data center researchers have conducted more technical research on the efficiency of infrastructure equipment, the software focuses on devices such as air-conditioning efficiency improvement, closed channels, and liquid cooling servers. The software definition is more about the scheduling of operation management. It can use resources in a centralized manner during device operation, this includes power supply and distribution equipment resources and refrigeration equipment resources, so that the resources used work at a higher load rate, while other unused devices work in sleep state.

Iii. New business model

In addition, from the perspective of business methods, there may be a need for cloud computing to add other business models to the data center.

For example, to build a cloud data center, investors need to invest in construction infrastructure, data center infrastructure, IT infrastructure, and business application, however, the core competitiveness of cloud data centers is mainly concentrated on upper-level resources such as service capabilities. Investors may not catch a cold in investing in lower-level resources such as data center construction and data center infrastructure. In this case, investors in the cloud data center may be more willing to use leasing rather than investment construction. Therefore, in the future, it is impossible to create a business model dedicated to renting data centers for cloud service providers.