Demand for modular datacenters in India is still weak - Manish Gupta, Dell India

In the current scenario, what do organizations expect from their datacenters?

Organizations are realizing that more than having a datacenter with a large capacity, it is important to have a datacenter that is resourceful, optimizes costs, saves power, and enables automation of processes. Also, IT administrators are expected to solve datacenters problems quickly with remote monitoring and management of datacenters. Additionally, power saving is also in great demand among enterprises and datacenter providers in order to reduce their carbon footprint. With more organizations using technology as a critical enabler in business, it becomes more important for the datacenter to be flexible so as to adapt to the rapidly changing needs of the business. The approach to run these new age workloads will be more focused on solutions which can better manage, scale, and provide a unified architecture. In the coming years, we see solutions such as converged infrastructure, software defined datacenters, and modular datacenters emerge as smart alternatives to traditional datacenters.

How do you compare the economies of a modular datacenter with that of a traditional datacenter?

The primary benefit of a Modular Datacenter (MDC) is the speed in which it can be deployed; traditional datacenters often take months to deploy and even longer to get to an efficient working state. The economics of the MDC are becoming obvious in instances where time to deploy offers a commercial advantage to the organization. That said, considering the long-term, MDCs also offer more efficient operation resulting in lower opex with savings in power, better cooling efficiencies, and optimized density of the enterprise equipment. Overall economic benefits of maintaining an MDC as an alternative to a traditional datacenter may vary between environments.

How do you differentiate from your competitors?

Unlike most modular or containerized datacenter solutions offered by other players, Dell MDC offers choice and flexibility. Dell MDCs offer an array of facility-level power and cooling options designed to meet customers’ specific workload needs and future scale-out requirements. Traditional datacenters typically require significant capital and operating expenditures to bring online and operate effectively. Dell builds MDC solutions from pre-manufactured and integrated IT power and cooling modules tailored to customers’ IT requirements, and built-to-scale at a fraction of the cost of raised-floor facilities. Customers can increase energy efficiency with industry-leading power usage effectiveness (PUE) (aslow as 1.014); reduce power and cooling costs with an array of outside air or mechanical cooling technologies right-sized for their environment; and deploy almost anywhere in the world with a footprint as small as 10 parking spaces. Dell has been a recognized leader in the MDC industry since 2009, with over 165 deployed installations globally supporting more than 65 megawatts of IT capacity today.

How do you perceive the demand for modular datacenter in the Indian market?

Demand for MDCs in India is still relatively low as compared to North America and European markets which contribute the maximum revenue. The various reasons for the weak demand in India could be lack of awareness about the benefits of MDCs in comparison to traditional datacenters. According to a global report by MarketsandMarkets, the global modular datacenter market is expected to grow from $6.52 bn in 2014 to $26.02 bn by 2019, at a CAGR of 31.9%. In terms of geographies, North America and Europe is expected to be the biggest market in terms of revenue contribution, while Asia Pacific, Middle East & Africa, and Latin America is expected to experience increased market traction, during the forecasted period.

Can you shed light on the key benefits of modular datacenters?

Modular datacenters help in scaling datacenter capacity quickly, cost-effectively, and efficiently. The key benefits

of modular datacenters are fast deployment and lower costs. Organizations can get up and running on a Dell MDC in less than six months. Further, they can deploy an MDC—outside or inside warehouse environments—for less than the cost of building a traditional raised-floor datacenter. MDCs also result in increased efficiency by lowering power-usage efficiency (PUE) to under 1.05 with outside air and evaporative cooling technology. Other major benefit is easy scale-out, as organizations can increase datacenter capacity simply by adding MDC modules as and when needed. In addition, MDCs can be designed to accommodate more per rack.

What are the benefits with regards to power and cooling?

Rising energy costs and regulations compound the expense to power and cool a datacenter. With MDCs, customers can reduce operational costs and IT environmental impact using outdoor air. The application of advanced new technology for use of cooling air from the outdoors ensures significantly lower energy requirements than traditional datacenters. By lowering the energy requirements, the cost of maintaining an MDC is relatively lower than a traditional datacenter.

Do you think traditional datacenters are still being preferred over modular datacenters?

If we consider the Indian market, MDCs do not have a strong presence as of now primarily because of the fact that many companies have already invested in building traditional datacenters. However, we see a trend in its adoption and it will only grow in the coming years as more and more customers realize the true benefits of an MDC as compared to a traditional datacenter.