The Future Data Center: Both Consolidated and Distributed

　　Data centers are becoming increasingly important in today's mobile and connected world. They store and process vast amounts of consumer and business data, supporting numerous mobile applications, and are undeniably the cornerstone of many modern business models. Very large hyperscale data centers receive significant attention and are highly energy-efficient, such as those operated by Google, Amazon, and Facebook. However, the servers in these data centers account for only about 5% of all data center servers in the United States.

　　According to a recently published NRDC report, another approximately 3 million data centers in the U.S. house about 95% of the nation's total servers. These additional data centers include multi-tenant colocation facilities and enterprise organizations' internal data centers. The NRDC report indicates that servers in these dense data centers typically utilize only 12% to 18% of available capacity, resulting in significant resource waste and low operational energy efficiency.

　　The report estimates that by 2020, data center energy consumption could reach 14 billion kilowatt-hours, with electricity costs approaching approximately 13 billion dollars. It also estimates that simply saving half the energy through cost-effective energy efficiency best practices could reduce power consumption by 40%. Many technologies are now available to achieve this higher Data Center energy efficiency, including the use of physical-to-logical virtualization to improve utilization, as well as better-performing, more efficient equipment and new network architectures.

　　Another recent report from Emerson, a well-known electronics technology company, surveyed data center professionals and found that the future of data centers lies in decentralization rather than further centralization. In the survey, 58% of respondents expected that by 2025, data centers would be half the size of current facilities or smaller. 31% expected neighborhood internet exchange centers to emerge by 2025, and 68% believed that by 2025, at least 60% of computing would be cloud-based.

　　This survey suggests that in the future, there will be both more efficient hyperscale data centers and smaller individual data centers connected by high-speed networks embedded in neighborhoods or even homes. An increasing number of local technology resources supporting the rapidly growing array of interconnected devices (often referred to as the "Internet of Things") "may help promote the development of local IT resources, including digital storage, to consolidate and process this local data before transmitting it to the broader network."

　　To improve energy efficiency in distributed IT resources, as the Emerson survey suggests, new power-saving modes must be developed for servers and other IT equipment. These modes must support rapid response when needed, yet enter low-power or zero-power states when idle. One way servers can achieve this is by using non-volatile memory rather than volatile memory in processing units.

　　Today, flash memory with various interfaces, including DIMM sockets typically used for DRAM, allows a certain amount of non-volatile memory in computer and server architectures. In the future, non-volatile memory architectures such as Spin-Transfer Torque Magnetic Random Access Memory (STTRAM) are expected to replace internal cache memory in processors, enabling instant-on capability with no need for data refresh. The transition from volatile to non-volatile memory architectures will play a significant role in improving energy efficiency in data centers of all sizes.

　　As our reliance on cloud-based applications and other Data Center services grows, the need to improve Data Center efficiency becomes increasingly urgent. Consolidating resources offers new avenues for improving efficiency and reducing costs, which is a major factor in lowering online storage expenses. Meanwhile, new non-volatile memory technologies enable more efficient individual Server operations and provide additional power-saving modes. This could potentially increase local servers and IT resources, thereby supporting the connection, analysis, and use of a growing number of networked devices (IoT). The future will be characterized by both consolidation and distribution.

Source: 51CTO.com