New Challenges in the Ever-Evolving Data Center Industry
Earlier this week, the 7×24 Exchange – Southern California Chapter hosted a packed meeting at the Hilton Garden Inn in Irvine, nearby Cyxtera’s LAX3 Data Center.
Attendees were treated to a presentation by Herb Villa of Rittal (always entertaining!) about “What’s Next? Planning for Tomorrow’s IT Installation.” Tod Sword of SCE followed with a presentation on SCE’s efforts to keep Data Center business in Southern California. Damon Soulakis, Director Strategic Alliances at Cyxtera Technologies, finished up the meeting with an overview of Cyxtera’s single-story Energy Star rated and Uptime Institute Tier III certified Irvine campus. Guests were then shuttled over to Cyxtera for a well-received tour of their state-of-the-art facility.
Per Herb Villa, as new technologies and increasing compute demand such as blockchain applications and Open Compute Project (OCP), Data Center operators will have to adapt and become more agile. Additionally, with proliferation of Edge Data Centers, as well as the 5G rollout, modularity will continue to explode. How should you plan to accommodate these emerging technologies?
One of the big items Herb brought up was supporting the Open Compute Project (OCP) and what next generation Data Centers will need including:
• Support AC and/or DC Power
• 21” Rackmount vs. 19” Standard
• Open RU vs. Standard (1.75”) RU
• Higher Weight Load Capacity with or Without Doors
• Higher Thermal Densities
• OCP Specific Hardware
Additionally, as Data Centers throughout the world face rising heat loads and increased density, as well as the mandate to significantly reduce energy consumption, Data Center end-users across all sectors will demand more agile infrastructure. Further, with the rapid adoption of Edge computing, operators are realizing the importance of being able to quickly deploy modular infrastructure.
To keep pace with this change, Data Centers will have to implement:
• Scalability
• Expandability
• Adaptability
• Automation
• Efficiency (Energy & Economic)
• Security
Tod Sword with SCE followed with a discussion about how SCE supports current and future Data Center customers in our territory by offering rate discounts to stay, come and grow.
As you look to future proof your data operations, take a look at DSI’s Data Center Report Card, our newest offering Power Outage Preparation and our work on Modular Deployments.
