‘On-demand’ on steroids: A data centre delivered to your door

Roots in the military
As with many radical technologies, the on demand data centre concept originated in the armed forces where it was developed in response to the need for fully functioning intelligence facilities which could be transported globally and rapidly deployed in the field. These versatile and containable data centres were designed to provide instant connectivity services in remote areas, enabling vital communication and the sharing of field-based intelligence in real time. As a result, they needed to withstand the extremities of all kinds of environments and support the possibility of being managed remotely, particularly when positioned in combat zones.

Evolution for commercial deployment
What began life some fifteen years ago as a military shipping container packed with technology has since evolved into a commercially operational and scalable structure designed to meet the demands of today’s high growth data centre environments.

DCOD will challenge conventional thinking in 2015. What should a data centre look like? What kind of site does it require? How is it paid for? How is it maintained, powered and secured? How big should it be? Many such preconceptions have been reimagined. A DCOD building itself is scalable, as are the servers and cabling, the power, cooling, lighting, security and all the other systems, enabling the whole facility to flex in accordance with the increasing demands of the business. For the customer, the conventional CAPEX outlay at the start of the project stage has been replaced by a rolling OPEX-based managed services contract. Internal investment in specialist skills and maintenance staff are also eliminated since the technical support and maintenance of the facility is bundled into the contract. SLA guarantees provide the Quality of Service assurances needed to protect the customer from risk and, in the eyes of the FD, turn the idea from an interesting model into a valid commercial proposition.

What are the market drivers?
It is no secret that the massive year on year hikes in global data consumption have been the primary drivers of growth in the data centre industry. But the information revolution is entering a period where several factors are set to combine, whipping up a perfect storm of data growth; one which looks like it will accelerate data volumes far more rapidly than already witnessed.

Advances in low cost, high-speed and high bandwidth fixed and mobile connectivity services are driving the development of data rich applications and services. Video streaming services are leading the charge and the continued rollouts of both fibre-to-the-curb and Long-Term Evolution (LTE) (which marries mobile Global System for Mobile Communications (GSM) networks with IP) are widening the superhighways and raising the speed limit at the same time. The increasing affordability of smart devices has armed the masses with the means of consuming these services, increasing demand and, as a result, driving up data volumes. Cloud-based communications and productivity application suites from the likes of Google and Microsoft, which have been popular with consumers for some years, are fast finding their way into the workplace, resulting in more corporate data being held offsite in commercial data centres than ever before. Finally, 2015 will be the year when the ‘Internet of Things’ really starts to gather momentum, connecting untold numbers of machines, buildings, vehicles and a wide variety of other unmanned objects and systems to IP. This phenomenon in particular has the potential to shift growth in global data volumes into a completely different league.

So, all good news for data centres then? Well, yes, if they can keep up. Right now there is a healthy amount of storage space available across the UK, but this is unlikely to last and we are already seeing smaller operations struggling to expand in line with prevailing opportunities, either because they lack the upfront CAPEX investment required to fund their expansion or they are simply unable to scale up their facilities quickly enough. Many such facilities are already bursting at the seams, and extending bricks and mortar or finding a new site entirely takes time. In many cases the typical build cycle of a traditional data centre of two to three years no longer fits the bill. A successful data centre business is dependent on its agility and how quickly it can respond to dynamic IT demands, changing business strategies, fluctuating costs and evolving technology.

The Benefits of DCOD
How much a data centre is used all depends on the operational demands of the organisation, or organisations, it supports. For many, the considerable expense and complexity associated with establishing a new traditional bricks and mortar facility weakens the business case to the point whereby the decision is shelved. It takes time to find a site, design the facility specifically for that site, and determine all of its requirements, whilst trying to keep up with the constant change of technology within the industry. This is why the concept of a ready-made data centre has taken root, as it alleviates the process of designing a new data centre from scratch every time an existing facility needs to shed its skin in order to grow.

So when the pressure’s on, what if planning and capacity decisions could be simplified? Surely it should be possible for organisations to reduce both design and development complexities together with the amount of time spent delivering them? The concept of an on-demand data centre enables organisations to build only what is required, in a modular building, and scale the facility up or down according to the demands of the business, at a pay-as-you-go rate.

This new breed of data centre is also green. New technologies and intelligent software are used to control all aspects of the building. Multi-stage evaporative cooling and air mixing technologies significantly reduce the amount of energy the facility consumes, making it highly efficient. By using this technology with outside ‘free’ air, together with a variety of filtration solutions, it can also deliver high energy in nearly any kind of environment. As any data centre manager knows, energy consumption is a major operational expense, so increasing efficiency is not only an environmentally sound move, it makes good commercial sense too. Operational overheads are reduced too, since all maintenance tasks are outsourced as part of the managed services contract.

Reimagining the data centre as a living, breathing, constantly evolving asset neatly aligns its management with the volatile nature of today’s marketplace. Offsite infrastructure service providers in particular need to embrace operational agility as business fundamental, scaling their assets quickly and in-line with market demand. The modular and on-demand approach may be radical, but it is hard to argue against its suitability for today’s market conditions.