{"id":10919,"date":"2017-12-20T13:00:08","date_gmt":"2017-12-20T21:00:08","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.palada.net\/index.php\/2017\/12\/20\/news-4691\/"},"modified":"2017-12-20T13:00:08","modified_gmt":"2017-12-20T21:00:08","slug":"news-4691","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.palada.net\/index.php\/2017\/12\/20\/news-4691\/","title":{"rendered":"A Look Back at the Hottest Data Center Topics of 2017"},"content":{"rendered":"

Credit to Author: Paul Desmond| Date: Wed, 20 Dec 2017 19:00:46 +0000<\/strong><\/p>\n

Incredibly, it is once again December, a time of year when all good bloggers stop to take stock of the year gone by. Judging by number of views of data center-related blog posts published this year, following are the topics that most resonated with readers \u2013\u00a0all with good reason.<\/p>\n

\"data <\/p>\n

Resiliency at the Edge <\/strong><\/p>\n

Edge data centers were once again front-and-center in 2017 as companies employed them both as aggregation points for Internet of Things networks as well as to support any premises-based applications that have not moved to the cloud. But whereas in 2016 the focus was on the proliferation of edge data centers, in 2017 the discussion shifted more to reliability.<\/p>\n

That makes sense, because applications that remain on-premises are generally there for one (or more) of a number of reasons: the company needs a greater level of control over them; to meet regulatory requirements; a need for fast connectivity and low latency. With those kinds of requirements to meet, edge data centers must function with the same sort of reliability and resiliency as traditional, large data centers.<\/p>\n

As this post by Wendy Torell<\/a> points out, that means following best practices around areas including security, dedicated cooling, data center infrastructure management, rack management, and redundancy in various power components, including UPS, distribution, and power paths. The issue extends even to IT closets, many of which now function as edge data centers \u2013 and thus need proper cooling and power infrastructure, as this Dennis Bouley post<\/a> makes clear.<\/p>\n

Proper data center planning<\/strong><\/p>\n

In many respects, it all comes down to proper planning, which was another hot data center topic in 2016. Another Dennis Bouley post<\/a> laid out the issue nicely, by comparing data center planning to kitchen design. \u201cTypical challenges found in poor kitchen designs seem to mirror those found in data center designs: wasted space, poor lighting, inadequate ventilation and unstable power,\u201d he writes.<\/p>\n

The strategies for success are remarkably similar in both, as well. They include paying attention to the sequence of project execution, seeking out reference designs, and not underestimating the base infrastructure that is the foundation for all that follows. In the data center, that means power, cooling, racks and cabling. For more on this topic, check out the e-guide Schneider Electric produced on the topic, \u201cA Practical Guide to Data Center Planning and Design.\u201d<\/a><\/p>\n

Prefabricated, modular data centers <\/strong><\/p>\n

One way to simplify the process of building a data center is to use prefabricated, modular components. That\u2019s how the visual effects firm Animal Logic built a data center in just 4 \u00bd months to support the compute-intensive work it does to create movie magic, the subject of a popular Steven Carlini blog post<\/a>. One example is the film Happy Feet, which won the Oscar\u00ae for Best Animated Feature Film in 2007. The film was entirely computer-generated, including six scenes that had more than 400,000 penguins \u2013 produced by some 2,000 blade servers, as detailed in this Network World story<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u201cSpeed of deployment for our data center environments is absolutely critical to our business,\u201d says Alex Timbs, Head of IT at Animal Logic. \u201cWe were looking for an extremely high capacity, highly dense solution.\u201d<\/p>\n

A prefabricated solution fit the bill because most of the installation and integration work is done in a controlled factory environment, to customer specifications. Complete modules \u2013 for power, cooling and\/or IT space \u2013 are then delivered to the site, where just a few final connections are required to get them up and running. As the Carlini post points out<\/a>, the modules can take many different shapes and sizes, from skid-based components that sit inside an existing building to, as in Animal Logic\u2019s case, self-contained data centers housed in ISO containers.<\/p>\n

Lithium-ion batteries <\/strong><\/p>\n

Last year in this space we recounted how lithium-ion (Li-ion) batteries were just starting to come on the scene. Well that trend has certainly continued, as a post by Simon Zhang<\/a> made clear. Citing a report from Bloomberg New Energy Finance, he writes:<\/p>\n

\u201cIn 2025 Li-ion batteries will account for 5.6GWh of data center battery backup capacity, as compared to 8.3GWh for traditional valve-regulated lead-acid (VRLA) batteries (see Figure 1 below). That means Li-ion technology will snatch 40% of market share in just 8 years. In a market that\u2019s not exactly known for making rapid technological shifts, that is nothing short of remarkable.\u201d<\/p>\n

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North America and Europe data center annual battery back-up demand, 2016-25 (GWh)<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

As the post points out, this kind of growth isn\u2019t surprising given the many benefits Li-ion batteries provide, including:<\/p>\n