Intelligent Data Centres Issue 13 | Page 20

DATA CENTRE PREDICTIONS why 53% of enterprises that had moved everything to public cloud are already repatriating some of their data (IDC). Storing data in one cloud and on-premises, (hybrid cloud infrastructure) or in multiple clouds (multi-cloud infrastructure) are both sensible, proven approaches to ensure organisations can remain in control and beat the monopoly. Monopolies and AI AI will compete more strenuously against . . . AI, fuelling monopolistic practices and reducing competitive situations (a key early example of this includes the homogenisation of air travel pricing). To be ready for what the fourth (and fifth) industrial revolution brings, the division between what requires ‘humans’ and what does not will accelerate, so we will continue to see the divvying-up of those tasks and functions that require humans, and those that AI does well. As time goes on, humans will do what requires care, creativity and artisanship; and everything else will be automated. This year will see this division of ‘labour’ accelerate. Hackers and data breaches New ways of identifying patients, customers and depositors will be developed this year, as the already accelerating pace of hacking and data breaches continues. There’s huge value in stored data. Until they make these changes, hospitals and medical providers, for example, will remain strong targets 20 Issue 13 ORGANISATIONS WILL STOP UNNECESSARY ‘RIP AND REPLACE’ TO REDUCE WASTE THIS YEAR. due to the value of the data they store: not just patient health information, but also the patient identification that goes along with it (government ID, birth date, address, etc.). Sustainability Organisations will stop unnecessary ‘rip and replace’ to reduce waste this year. When technology refresh cycles come around, many organisations are compelled by their vendors to take on full replacement of both hardware and software. This results of course, in a large amount of technology waste that gets processed, or ‘demanufactured’, (using energy and human resources) for recycling and disposal. Servers, which can contain toxic chemicals like Beryllium, Cadmium, Chromium Hexavalent, Lead, Mercury, BFRs and more should be used until they ‘break’, not just until a vendor wants to sell its customers a new round. It’s time for that ‘rip and replace’ culture to reform. Storage is a great example of a place where that reform can happen. Software- defined storage, with ultra-strong data resiliency schemes, is a great way to take data servers to their true end-of-life, rather than replacing at refresh time. Adopting a robust software-defined storage solution that can scale infinitely using standard servers – and that is ‘generation-agnostic’ so it can accommodate the steady evolution of hardware over time – is a good way to reduce waste. What is ultra-strong data resiliency in storage? When storage is spread across a collection of storage servers, those nodes can share a highly parallel distributed logic that has no single point of failure – it doesn’t not depend on any single component. This kind of system is resilient, self-healing, adaptive, location aware and constantly renewing. In that kind of scenario, you can wait for hardware to fail before you replace it, because it won’t affect data availability – server outages are not a problem. Even better, some resiliency models can lose a full data centre – or a data centre plus a server. Eventually, servers will fail. When that happens, their metal, plastics and glass can be recycled; and toxic components disposed of safely. Why accelerate and increase the processing, waste and energy when using the systems until they must be replaced is a solid option? ◊ www.intelligentdatacentres.com