Data Centers: The next five years

Last week at the annual Gartner Data Center Conference in Las Vegas, key analysts overviewed the most important issues that data centers face in the next five years. As expected, rising energy costs and the movement toward “green” solutions was a primary topic, as was social networking technology. But there were several other hot topics which the responsible network operations professional should be pursuing.

Below is our take on eight of the top 10 issues, as raised by Gartner. As a refresher, the top 10 issues were virtualization; the data deluge; energy and green IT; complex resource tracking; consumerization of IT and social software; unified communications; mobile and wireless; system density; mashups and portals; and cloud computing.

1. Virtualization – As virtualization technologies continue to advance, adoption is accelerating. Savvy data centers have already begun implementing virtualized servers, and this growing trend is here to stay for a variety of reasons including dynamic server load management, a need to reduce power consumption, and fast growing network complexity.
2. The data deluge – Not a new issue, albeit an accelerating one, the vast amount of data that traverses today’s networks creates a variety of problems, from storage management to throughput to monitoring. And here’s the kicker…the problem will only continue to expand over time. Faster and more efficient network infrastructures (10G today, 40G and later 100G in the future) will help with throughput. Gartner’s automated tiering idea for storage holds water strategically, but not all data centers are poised to implement it in the near term. Monitoring is particularly concerning, as higher bandwidth tools are required, yet virtualized servers and applications can be a challenge to pinpoint for monitoring in dynamic environments. Advanced capabilities for data/traffic aggregation and filtering are not only “nice to have” in virtualized environments, but a must.
3. Energy and green IT – Not much to say that you haven’t already heard. When it comes right down to brass tacks, this is a cost saving move, and fortunately (for your corporate communications division), it can be leveraged for some positive PR. Given current global issues related to energy costs and environmental concerns, this trend is here to stay.
4. Consumerization of IT and social software – This is an issue that has grown significantly over the past year or two, and one that Gartner has said will continue this accelerated growth path over the next several years. Consumers are very interested in new technologies, and especially in the ability to control their own user experience. Coupled with a growing trend toward a distributed workforce, work-from-home privileges, and the vast volume of unstructured data that result from social web-based applications, we see consumerization as inevitable (and in some respects, a good thing).
5. Unified communications - UC has been touted as the grand vision for bringing all communications media together, and it most certainly has its benefits, idealistically. That said, the growing trend toward digitization of communications is a prerequisite to truly achieving this vision. Kudos to Cisco and other thought leaders in this area, because as we analyzed in our post about the Net Generation, real-time and cross-platform (even cross media) integration is exactly the type of capabilities the younger sect of the population desires.
6. 

   Mobile devices like the Android now function like mini-computers

   Mobile and wireless – Continuing on the idea that the younger generation wants pervasive connectivity and interaction, mobile and wireless are growing in importance by the day. This is yet another way that social technologies are forcing our hand at considering new strategies for accommodating user needs. Coupled with the desire for “real time everything”, we have seen mobile phones advance to the point where they can serve as mini computers. The key issues then are how to secure devices that are not physically attached to the network itself, how to accelerate performance over time as mobile network speed increases, and how to properly provision devices and connections.  Brace yourselves, because the complexities that this will pose may not even all be known as of today.

7. Mashups and portals – Both similar in nature, in that they serve important content aggregation purposes, mashups and portals offer different challenges due to the nature of how they work. Of particular concern to us is the mashup concept, where not only content but code can be aggregated. The obvious problem is that you risk exposing yourself to untrusted code, not to mention potential copyright issues related to syndicating content that is not authorized for distribution and/or republication. Since browsers were not designed with mashups in mind, this is an issue that absolutely cannot be overlooked from a security standpoint.
8. Cloud computing – With all of the cost and efficiency benefits that cloud computing offers, cloud security remains a wild card. Two of the most common arguments about cloud security center around the access / authorization process and storage / transmission of sensitive data. Access can be a problem for anything that falls outside of your physical environment, but that is a lesser concern in our eyes than securing the actual traffic stream that transmits across the ultimate cloud…the Internet. It will be fun to watch how this all plays out in the coming months and years.

So there you have it, our take on eight of the 10 issues that Gartner said will be the most important to data centers heading into the second decade of this century.

We’d love to hear your thoughts on the issues and our commentary. Feel free to agree or disagree. Debates can be very useful in helping hone our viewpoints on all of these issues, so I truly hope this post sparked a new idea or thought for you.

Well well well, we’ve now shared about a dozen Monitoring Resources with you, and hopefully you’ve found some great places to stay up-to-date on critical issues in this area. Today, we are sharing a more broad site that covers a wide range of data center, IT infrastructure, and networking topics:

TechWorld

TechWorld: Independent IT Infrastructure, Data Center, and Networking Resource from the United Kingdom

TechWorld dubs itself the “UK’s premier site for IT professionals”, and it certainly covers a long list of key topics, each of which is focused on helping make the IT professional’s job easier. To achieve this objective, the writers are all experienced with hands-on management and troubleshooting of networks and related technologies.

Originally made available in 2003, TechWorld has provided consistent, high-quality content without any bias toward specific brands or companies in the industry. As such, you will find minimal advertising on the site, with all of the “sponsored links” highlighted in gray to clearly delineate between editorial content and marketing material. The content tends to focus on topics such as product reviews, technologies, “how-to”s, and the latest breaking news in the networking space. The service is backed by IDG Communications, which provides a wealth of additional resources to help TechWorld deliver on its promise of servicing you with this information.

Like most of the resources we’ve been sharing with you, this site is broken down into content-specific sections as follows:

• Networking
• Storage
• Security
• Mobility & Wireless
• Applications
• OS & Servers
• SME
• Green IT
• Virtualisation

Separate from the “official” content areas, TechWorld has a multi-author Blog that updates intermittently. For example, they’ve already had six postings in April, but the previous post was from mid-February (hey, these guys have jobs too, right?).

Other available resources include:

• Case Studies
• Downloads
• Forums
• Video
• White Papers
• Training (Note – training only available for a fee)

If you are as busy as many of us are, you can simply go to the site and sign up for their newsletter, which will push information directly to you. Alternatively, TechWorld maintains an active Twitter presence where key topics are shared as those materials come available. @AnueSystems has followed them, and we recommend you take a look to see if you can also derive some value from it.

This post officially concludes our 1H09 tour of online marketing resources. Please do not hesitate to share any feedback on this resource or to recommend additional sites we should cover in our next round of reviews. For the near future, however, we will dive into some other important areas of Network Visibility, so check back with “The Network View” weekly for our latest thoughts and musings.

Now that we’ve overviewed some security focused resources the past couple of weeks, let’s turn our attention back to the data center itself. While there are many sites available that focus on specific areas of importance in today’s complex data center environments, there are a few online resources that dive into a variety of networking and applications issues. Let’s cover one of those now:

Data Center Knowledge

Data Center Knowledge

Data Center Knowledge aims to be a leading source of information about the latest developments surrounding today’s most complex data center issues. Their goal is to provide a mix of analysis and ongoing news, with key topics such as high density computing, cloud computing, and green IT covered, among others.

Specific areas of focus we noticed included some good nuggets such as:
1. Data Center related events for 2009
2. Data Center related job opportunities
3. Downtime related case studies
4. White Papers
5. Specific technologies such as blades, cooling, generators, virtualization, and much more
6. Verticals and applications (labeled as “Industries“), including CDNs, consolidation, disaster recovery, Saas, storage, VoIP, HIPAA, and hosting
7. Location-specific overviews of key cities both domestic and abroad / “across the pond”

If you prefer not to have to go out and find the information you need, Data Center Knowledge also offers a newsletter that will push content directly to you.

The site is maintained by Rich Miller, who also serves as Editor of the materials appearing on the site. Rich brings to the table over 25 years of experience as a journalist and analyst, including coverage of internet security, blogging, web hosting, secure ecommerce, and similar topics. He also owns Miller WebWorks LLC, providing Internet publishing, blogging, and hosting services for small businesses and nonprofits. His work has appeared in a list of major media publications, and he serves as a web site hosting, technology, and performance data provider Netcraft.

Rich accepts submissions of news about the data center industry, which can be sent to news@datacenterknowledge.com for consideration. Videos are of particular interest, so take a look at the Videos archive if you want a good idea of the types of multimedia materials that would suit the website.

If you do submit news or videos and it makes the cut, please come back and post a comment on this thread so our readers may take a look at your submission firsthand.