IBM new Service promotes traditional data center to "cloud" transformation

Data center is the main carrier of IT service, now China has a large number of different scale data centers, with the emergence of emerging industries such as cloud computing, China's data center has emerged a new challenge, but also came to a new crossroads: to stick to the traditional construction and operation mode, or positive transformation, embarked on a new development path? So how should China's data centers be transformed? IBM gave the answer at the recent IBM Global Information Technology Services (GTS) 2013 Cloud Data Center Summit Forum.

New trends bring new challenges to data centers

At the IBM Cloud Data Center Summit Forum, IBM's Greater China Data Center Services general Manager Sun Jiangang points out that five factors are now driving the development of technology, including cloud computing, big data, mobile, cognitive computing and sustainable development. These trends have prompted China's data centers to move toward cloud data centers, and the size and complexity of data centers have increased rapidly, but in the development of cloud data centers, Chinese customers have had to face the four major development dilemmas of "strict policy, new technology, big investment and high demand".

IBM Greater China Data Center Services general Manager Sun Jiangang

The first is "strict policy", Sun Jiangang explained that the current China's energy standards are increasingly perfect, the country's "Twelve-Five" energy policy is total control: "The state of energy is the demand for indicators, unit GDP emission reduction indicators to reduce to 16%", in the Green Data Center standard management and supervision, high energy consumption, The extensive data center development model of high emission will become a history. And then "technology is new," Today, mobile technology has increased business impact, cloud technology, dual-live technology is maturing, data centers need to master these new technologies: "The change in the foreground, backstage to be able to support the front desk, these technologies, design, service, operation and other concepts to be integrated together." ”

Another challenge is "big investment", Sun Jiangang said, because the enterprise to the data Center high reliability request, the data center construction standard gradual enhancement, this brought directly is the investment scale fast to climb: "Formerly traditional data center construction thousands of square meters already very big, today very easy to reach tens of thousands of square meters;" Today, the construction of an information industry park or cloud base, including several data centers, investment is generally a few billion to billions of, even in a park can reach tens of billions. "In addition, there is a challenge to" high demand ":" Today's business demand for data center services is also increasingly high, not only the need for higher flexibility to meet business needs, but also to provide 7x24 high-quality services. ”

"On-demand" data center services

In these difficulties, Sun Jiangang, companies need to change the traditional model, not just the data center as a construction or hardware equipment engineering, and rely entirely on construction companies, hardware manufacturers or engineering management companies to complete. Enterprises should start from their own business needs, through with the external professional partners to establish long-term strategic partnership, and partners to share risk and pressure, so that the development of data centers more vitality. In order to help customers achieve the "landing" of the cloud data center, the IBM GTS department has launched a new data center service based on on-demand pay mode, which will help customers flexibly choose their own construction, build, condominium and Loan construction and other forms of service to achieve the cloud data center landing.

Sun Jiangang said that IBM can provide professional services to customers from the four aspects of "forward-looking planning, flexible construction, intelligent operation and social responsibility".

In the forward-looking planning, IBM can rely on its own powerful expert service team to help customers develop a cloud data center strategy with the IT and business development blueprint, and cover all aspects of data center infrastructure, data center infrastructure, data Center operations management, strategic layout and financial factors, Release the core value of the cloud data center from a strategic perspective: "It is important to integrate business strategies and it strategies into the data center planning, and then combine the data center itself with the overall architecture of it." In the construction process, the need for it is not enough, but also need more business factors to consider, on the one hand, in planning to take into account the future operation of peacekeeping operations, but also take into account the strategic layout and financial factors. ”

Flexible construction, Sun Jiangang for example: "To build a large tens of thousands of square meters of data centers, the entire civil construction standards are very high, whether from the structure itself and shockproof itself; the life cycle of the data center building may be more than 20 years, 30, or even 50 years." But data center infrastructure equipment, such as air-conditioning, ups and other life cycle may be 5 years, 7 years, 10, IT equipment may be 3 years, 5 years, some even shorter. Sun Jiangang pointed out that the life cycle in a large building may not match, then need flexibility to build data centers to meet these dynamic development requirements. IBM has scalable modular data centers, enterprise-class modular data centers, portable modular data centers, high-density area solutions and other rich services to meet customer from the data center integration and virtualization, automation management, security and service optimization and other needs.

In the wisdom of operation, Sun Jiangang stressed: "The construction of cloud data center operations need some core competencies, people, technology, process three indispensable, this is the traditional operation of the iron Triangle, but also need to have a knowledge base, but also need and physical facilities combined." "In operations management, IBM has a wealth of cloud data center operating service experience and flexible service model, can help customers improve the cloud data center manageability and availability, reduce operational complexity, to achieve maximum operational efficiency and operational cost optimization." "Today's data center operations can be managed remotely with ipads and smartphones," he said. This allows our customers to focus more and more on the construction of core competencies. IBM wants smarter operations to make users more focused on core business, Sun Jiangang added.

Finally, Sun Jiangang specifically referred to the "social responsibility", that the corporate social responsibility is to maintain the enterprise evergreen a key point. Sun Jiangang said that IBM has 27 data centers in 15 countries in Europe, and two years ago IBM took the initiative to apply for the European Union data Center High Energy Data Center certification, in January 2012 all passed the certification. "IBM has the benefit of doubling the computing power and the amount of customer support," he said. Second, these 27 data centers are managed with standard process tools to improve the management efficiency of multinational, cross-regional data centers, Sun Jiangang says, with certification, IBM's data center also lowers energy costs for customers and delivers higher value.

Practise and combine ideas with practice

China is a huge data center market, with the new technology trends, the Chinese data Center market is also changing, for the changing Chinese market, IBM GTS Department also has a targeted strategy. Sun Jiangang first summed up a number of changes in China's data center market: "Overall, first of all, the Chinese users of the data center more and more high demand." Second, the Chinese users began to have their own data center layout, such as operators are the most typical, the selection of cloud base is very characteristic, such as Harbin, with climatic conditions, changed the past three centers in the large concentration mode. The third is the change of the data center investment pattern, now appeared the investment and financing mode, there are private placement in the data center; the construction subject has also changed, some are enterprises, and some are real estate developers under construction. ”

China's data center market is becoming more and more active, and Chinese users are more concerned about how the cloud data center really landed. Sun Jiangang said that IBM in China wants to help Chinese users get real data center practice through "the dissemination of ideas, the practice of quoting and practicing".

The first is the spread of ideas. Sun Jiangang said that IBM has rich experience and advanced concept in data center lifecycle construction, operation and maintenance management, which can be used for reference to Chinese users. Sun Jiangang An example: "IBM in the last century 60 's construction of the data center is still in use, the entire data center on a modular basis for recycling, such as module 1234, module one into use, module Two is next year, after the expansion of the fifth year, In the fourth module when the use of the first module out of the life cycle, re-transformation, in fact, is circular. ”

The second is the reference to practice. IBM has a number of successful data center practice cases around the world that can be made available to Chinese users. Sun Jiangang talked about the IBM North Karoli Data Center case: "IBM North Karoli Data Center equivalent to IBM's leading data center or data center flagship store, the Pue value of 1.5, won the State Government Award, January 2010 opened up to the domestic and foreign customers to visit." "In China, IBM has built China's data Center Management Service Center in Suzhou, and its general control center, the tools used, and IBM's headquarters in the United States, the use of the tool is to maintain the same standards and procedures, these can provide domestic customers with reference."

The third is to practise. The needs of Chinese customers are mixed: "Data center I think there are some characteristics of the industry, finance, operators, traditional enterprise data centers are not the same, their own use of data centers and business data centers are not the same, the assessment indicators are not the same," Sun Jiangang said, this needs to be done through practice, and customers to explore, combined with the application of customer examples, can be IBM's philosophy and practice to share to customers.

Speaking of IBM's advantages in Data center services, IBM Global Information Technology Service Information Architecture Chief Advisor Hilary Lee added: "Building a cloud center is not a simple physical environment, but the construction of how to ensure a static environment to support future dynamic changes, to provide the highest quality service." This is IBM and a different place, be able to help customers based on business objectives, what kind of cloud services should be provided in the future is the most appropriate, to help customers in the long-term process to establish an overall end-to-end mechanism, so that the provision of cloud services enterprises can quickly accept their customers to the cloud requirements. ”

On the operational dimension, Hilary Lee said that the services provided by IBM are end-to-end, from planning to construction, can also help customers at the beginning of the service-oriented operation and maintenance management, can take customers walk for several years, until the customer can manage their own.

To promote the Ordos Cloud data center Landing

Today, China's data center market is changing, from the geographical distribution, has changed the past, "the three centers of the two places," the large concentration of the location of the data center began to develop to the West, the north, by IBM assistance, The Cloud data center built in Ordos is a typical case of ZTE Energy Co., Ltd. 's cloud-Thai interconnection Technology Co.

Cloud Thai Interconnection general manager Moron in the interview to share the Ordos Cloud data Center Building story: "Yuntai Interconnection is a wholly owned subsidiary of ZTE Energy in the field of IDC, and ZTE Group made a strategic choice in 2007, adding a new business category, that is, energy-saving and environmental protection industry, first of all, the telecommunications field. Through a long period of research in the field of telecommunications, ZTE found that the bottleneck in future data center development is energy issues, so ZTE's task of planning, building and operating a high-performance green data center falls on the head of the cloud-Thai interconnection. ”

After comprehensive consideration, ZTE Energy will look to the vast western region of China. Relying on the advantages of the Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region's economy, policy, energy and natural conditions, we finally established close cloud computing strategic partnership with Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region and Eerduosi, and invested 30 billion yuan in Eerduosi investment in Inner Mongolia, the largest and most efficient energy use in the Asia-Pacific region, Cloud computing application richest data center cluster, average PUE value below 1.4, and achieved the highest construction level (according to the uptime Cato ' s tieriii+-level design, some of the room reached Tieriv level) and the minimum operating costs of the unification, And for the regional information development and cloud computing industry to provide advanced and reliable infrastructure protection.

Speaking of the reason for the location of Ordos, Moron said: "First of all, Ordos energy is very abundant, only in Ordos now the annual surplus of power generation capacity to reach 400多万千瓦, this amount is very large, the direct result of energy wealth is lower energy prices." Ordos electricity price is only one-third of Beijing, the advantage of electricity cost is obvious. Second, Ordos annual average temperature is only 3.5 degrees Celsius, according to planning, in Ordos one year, up to 1/3 time need to open the refrigeration host, other time All can use free cooling to do. Thirdly, the geological conditions in Ordos are very stable and no earthquakes have occurred in history. In addition, Ordos's flight distance from Beijing is only more than 600 kilometers, at the same time, the Government also attaches great importance to the issue of a number of targeted incentive policies. ”

The combination of many favorable reasons, cloud Thai interconnection will be the data center in Ordos, Moron that the future Ordos will form near North China, the Bohai Sea Region Data center of the gathering. At present, the container-type data center of the project phase a total of 10,000 square meters of the main building has been completed in October 2012, has entered the equipment installation and joint adjustment phase. Commissioning is expected at the end of July 2013. Data center customers are mainly government and financial clients, such as local banks.

In the construction of the Ordos Cloud Data Center, IBM acted as "consultant" and "Builder", which was responsible for the design and construction of the data center by IBM, and ensured the Pue value of the data center and uptime t3+ and T4 certification. Speaking of the reasons for choosing IBM, Moron said: "The Cloud Thai interconnection has an international perspective, looking around the world to find partners." IBM has done a great number of cases in history, and there is a deep bond between the company and IBM on this project, IBM made a guarantee on the Pue value, which is rare in China, probably the first example, "IBM Global Data Center Business Science and Technology Commissioner Zhongdongpo added, Ordos Cloud Data Center is an IBM standard product, after rigorous calculation, IBM is responsible for from the planning, design, to the implementation process, IBM for T4 Technical certification, has committed a number of projects.

The choice of electricity, natural conditions more suitable for the western region of China, the establishment of the Ordos Cloud Data Center provides a new way of thinking about the location of China's cloud data center, while IBM provides the planning and construction process, as well as the low PUE value and high standard of data center, and also the "Landing" of China Cloud data center. Provides a classic reference case.

(Responsible editor: Fumingli)