DATA CENTRE PREDICTIONS
designing a smaller DC to fit within a more
confined space. Using Edge Computing for
competitive advantage
This can prove difficult for even the
most well-resourced business. James van den Berg, Technology
Solutions Professional, Applications
and Infrastructure at Altron Karabina
For starters, combining the increasingly
high levels of computing, which
generate a lot of heat, with physically
smaller space means heat will need to
be carefully managed if they are to work
efficiently and prevent downtime.
Jonathan Leppard, Director at Future
Facilities
Overcoming Edge
Computing challenges
Jonathan Leppard, Director at
Future Facilities
The arrival of 5G is a truly transformative
technology. For the data centre
(DC) industry, high speeds and in
particular Ultra-Reliable Low Latency
Communication (URLLC) is set to cause a
huge market shift.
While hyperscalers, colo and enterprise
DCs will continue to expand and increase
as data usage naturally grows, Edge DCs
are set to see explosive growth over the
next few years thanks to 5G.
Driving this growth will be the fact that
a lot of technologies people get excited
about with 5G, such as autonomous
vehicles, VR and AR and the plethora of
IoT devices, will only really deliver their
full potential with Edge DCs.
In fact, one really exciting possibility
for mobile operators in particular, is the
chance to use Edge Computing to offer
Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) directly
from a network – potentially opening up a
whole new revenue stream for them.
Recent independent research
commissioned by Future Facilities found
downtime has been costing the average
DC £122,000 per year.
However, with Edge Computing set
to increase the amount of high-level
computing work being done, there’s a real
chance the cost of downtime will only
increase. The good news though is that
physics-based digital twins already exist
and can help in preventing downtime.
Digital twins have long been used in the
electronics and aerospace industries to
ensure designs work as efficiently as
possible. It is now a key way of ensuring
DCs better manage their heat too.
It’s pretty clear Edge DCs will make a
significant contribution to the number of
new data centres completed over the next
few years.
Avoid downtime with digital design However, despite all the excitement
around Edge DCs, there are a number of
challenges that will need to be overcome.
Crucially among these is the challenge of Edge DCs may, therefore, make up the
bulk of new DCs but ensuring they deliver
their full potential will mean overcoming
existing DC challenges.
Issue 10
DESPITE ALL THE
EXCITEMENT
AROUND EDGE
DCS, THERE ARE
A NUMBER OF
CHALLENGES THAT
WILL NEED TO BE
OVERCOME.
It works by creating an exact digital
representation of a data centre and
predicting the outcome of various
changes, enabling operators to test and
refine designs and deployments over the
DCs lifetime. This significantly lowers the
risk of downtime while enabling DCs to
run at a highly efficient level.
However, challenges around heat
management will always remain. What’s
more, while Edge DCs will grow at a fast
rate, the more traditional setups of colo,
hyperscale and enterprise will not be
standing still as we all continue to create
and generate more data.
18
Edge Computing is defined as a form of
distributed computing where compute and
storage is pushed outside the data centre
to the ‘Edge’ where it is generated and
used in order to improve response times
and reduce network traffic.
www.intelligentdatacentres.com