DATA CENTRE PREDICTIONS
use of third-party managed services for remote deployments .
Top data centre management trends in the new normal
Data centre managers now find themselves in a new normal with unique challenges and opportunities . While many were left scrambling to maintain operations in 2020 , plans and budgets are now being prioritised as the top data centre challenges and priorities become clear .
Demand for digital services explodes . The pandemic drove all interaction with the outside world online , causing a dramatic spike in the utilisation of server compute , storage and network resources . Google ’ s Hangouts Meet platform saw its daily usage reach 25-times more than typical levels , Verizon reported that online gaming traffic surged by 75 % in one week , Zoom saw a 2,000 % increase in daily meeting participants and Akamai saw a 50 % increase in Internet traffic . Given COVID- 19 ’ s impact on data centres , operators must find ways to quickly add capacity without experiencing downtime .
Work from home and minimal onsite staff . Social distancing and restrictions on the number of personnel that can be onsite at any time are now commonplace . Uptime Institute reported that 85 % of data centres increased remote working and 77 % reduced onsite personnel . These changes are here to stay , with 77 % of data centres planning to continue remote work for years to come . With physical access to the data centres extremely limited , data centre managers are increasingly leveraging intelligent infrastructure and remote management tools to oversee their data centres from anywhere .
More complex infrastructure and more distributed sites . While on-premises data centres still support the majority of workloads , that piece of the pie is shrinking . Alternative workload deployments look more attractive to organisations that seek flexibility , cost-effectiveness and increased efficiencies . A total of 70 % of data centre professionals reported to Service Express that Disaster Recovery and Business Continuity are the leading drivers of moving workloads off-premises . Organisations seek to mitigate risk from potentially uncertain global environments and to maintain operations in the face of vulnerabilities caused by COVID-19 . Other motivating factors for migrations include lower capital costs , improved security , rapid capacity expansion and infrastructure consolidation . The distributed nature of modern data centre and Edge environments means operators must manage the assets , connections , power and environment across many locations without the ability to go onsite .
Large need for remote planning and collaboration tools . Improving internal processes and collaboration is one of the top priorities for data centre managers in 2021 . Since data centre professionals are unable to go onsite – whether it ’ s because of COVID-19- driven restrictions or because the infrastructure is remote – there is a need for clear and concise visual instructions for smart hands . Work activity must be done accurately the first time to reduce the time spent in these sites , reduce the number of visits and mitigate a leading cause of downtime : human error . To improve productivity and efficiency , remote data centre teams must break down organisational domains and share a single source of truth via common views of remote data centre management dashboards and reports that are updated and visible in real-time .
Increased focus on reducing costs and increasing efficiency . Total data centre spending decreased in 2020 as economic uncertainty resulted in organisations pausing expansion plans and tightening budgets . While spending in 2021 is increasing , Service Express found that nearly half of all organisations ’ top priority for the next 12 months is to reduce IT costs and improve efficiencies . For many , this is not an easy task , with nearly three-quarters of respondents reporting that their top challenge
PLANS AND BUDGETS ARE NOW BEING PRIORITISED AS THE TOP DATA CENTRE CHALLENGES AND PRIORITIES BECOME CLEAR .
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