Intelligent Data Centres Issue 07 | Page 32

EDITOR’S QUESTION solutions that ensure the reliability, recoverability and effectiveness of your data, wherever it is located. Leveraging data According to the 2019 Veeam Cloud Data Management Report, companies plan to spend close to R600 million on deploying cloud data management technologies to build an intelligent business within the next 12 months. Part of this includes using technologies such as Artificial Intelligence (AI) and IoT to drive organisational success. Opportunities abound on the continent when it comes to leveraging data in progressively innovative ways. In healthcare, for example, the data captured from pacemakers can enable medical professionals to detect the onset of a heart attack even before a person is showing external symptoms. TRENT ODGERS, CLOUD AND HOSTING MANAGER, AFRICA AT VEEAM frica has always been considered a mobile- first environment. Now, thanks to the growth of the cloud, the continent is finding increasingly innovative ways to leverage mobile with data availability strategies. A In certain respects, the data is coming closer together thanks to the public and managed cloud, but in other respects it is also moving further away because of the Internet of Things (IoT) and Edge Computing. The rise of micro data centres The use of smaller, distributed, connected data centres that are closer to concentrations of users and generators of content/data is becoming necessary to support modern workloads. These not 32 Issue 07 Backup remains fundamental only augment traditional data centres but improve performance across the entire organisation by reducing pressure on enterprise networking resources. Today’s technologies allow Edge environments to be managed from a centralised location with complete visibility into and control of the micro data centres at the remote sites. And, with the growth of virtualisation and solutions such as software-defined architectures and hyper-converged infrastructures, micro data centres are becoming much easier to deploy and manage than ever before. Whichever technology you use to build your Edge Computing micro data centres, you must make sure that you focus on availability and deploy modern availability When it comes to data availability, it shouldn’t matter whether your underlying technology platform comprises of a centralised data centre, multiple clouds, an Edge Computing environment or some combination of all the above. And it shouldn’t matter if you are supporting centralised workers, remote workers, mobile workers or connected devices. They must all have uninterrupted access to and from the applications and resources they need at any time from any location. Even though businesses are still figuring out how best to generate income from Edge devices and IoT, the fundamentals of backup, recovery and continuity still need to apply. It is imperative that the appropriate redundancy measures are in place in the event of a disaster. To do any less risks significant problems not only from a compliance perspective but a customer- service one as well. ◊ www.intelligentdatacentres.com