As consumers and businesses continue to adopt connected appliances, the amount of data being sent to data centers will increase astronomically. According to a recent report from Gartner by 2020 the internet of things (IoT) will encompass 26 billion units. Aside from gathering a large amount of data, these devices are a unique challenge for data center professionals to tackle because much of this data will need to be processed and analyzed in real time while still being stored in a secure fashion.
In particular the most important areas to focus on are server technologies and storage management.
~Challenges to Server Technology
Currently some of the biggest challenges in terms of
server technologies lies in their architecture. Typically appliances are built with proprietary hardware which contains mandatory software and vice versa. Since appliances often have redundant setups to prevent failure, the cost of equipment for a datacenter is always one of the most notable expenses in the budget.
Many professionals are getting around this issue by using software-defined storage system. These technologies take features from the hardware layer and move them into the software layer. This switch allows operations to execute at the speeds required by IoT applications. Aside from the performance improvements, it also is possible to use software-defined storage on older equipment allowing professionals to extend the lifespan of equipment which would normally be retired.
Storage Management Challenges
As mentioned earlier, IoT create significantly larger amounts of storage than traditional applications. By distributing storage technology from a single point to multiple devices you can accommodate these increasing loads while also improving reliability by eliminating the single point of failure. Going beyond pooling resources within a datacenter, locating equipment across multiple data centers is going to be crucial for many mission critical applications of IoT devices to provide higher levels of redundancy while also offering reduced latency.
A Relatively Simple Solution
Although fully addressing these challenges requires data center professionals to tackle the issues from multiple fronts, taking a proactive approach to your day-to-day operations can greatly improve your ability to address future challenges. By integrating data center infrastructure management (DCIM) suite within your company you can accurately anticipate future resource needs and resource capacity from a central location.
Aside from focusing on future needs, real-time monitoring provided by DCIM suites is another feature which helps you to minimize downtime while also ensuring that your hardware replacement cycles are properly setup.
