Gearing up for Data Armageddon

Meeting the challenges of content explosion in enterprises has become a
serious issue.

It is estimated that the annual global IP traffic will exceed two-thirds of a
zettabyte (667 exabytes) in four years time. The economic downturn has tempered
the traffic growth, and this years forecast predicts 510 exabytes per year in
2012, growing to 667 exabytes per year or 56 exabytes per month in 2013. On the
whole, IP traffic will grow at a CAGR of 40%.

According to a market research report, in 2013, the Internet will be nearly
four times larger than it was in 2009. By the end of 2013, the equivalent of 10
bn DVDs will cross the Internet each month.Peer-to-peer (P2P) communications is
growing in volume, but declining as a percentage of overall IP traffic. P2P
file-sharing networks are now carrying 3.3 exabytes per month and will continue
to grow at a moderate pace with a CAGR of 18% from 2008 to 2013. Internet video
is now approximately one-third of all consumer Internet traffic, not including
the amount of video exchanged through P2P file sharing. Video-on-demand (VoD)
traffic will double every two years through 2013.

Globally, mobile data traffic will double every year through 2013, increasing
sixty-six times between 2008 and 2013. Mobile data traffic will grow at a CAGR
of 131% between 2008 and 2013, reaching over 2 exabytes per month by 2013. IP
traffic in Asia Pacific will reach 21 exabytes per month by 2013 at a CAGR of
42%. Monthly Internet traffic in Asia Pacific will generate 4.1 bn DVDs worth of
traffic, or 16.5 exabytes per month. This necessitates the availability of
robust storage solutions to meet the diverse needs from handhelds to data
centers.

Pravin Desale, country head, LSI	Jeff Richardson, excecutive VP, LSI	Abhi Talwalkar (fourth from right), CEO, LSI
How would data centers be used optimally in the future, was the question LSI posed

The numbers are overwhelming for organizations that struggle to grapple with
the multi-fold increase in information.

So, what challenges do that bring in for enterprises? LSI, the leading
systems company that manufactures storage, semiconductors, networking teamed up
with Dataquest to organize a forum to discuss these challenges for enterprises
in a growing economy like India.

The forum called Data Center Evolution 3.0: Meeting the Challenges of
Content Explosion in Enterprises and Beyond was organized in Pune and attended
by more than 200 participants from the user and technology communities.

"IP traffic is expected to increase by a factor of five from 2008-13. This
can be supported by the view that there have been more than 100 bn searches
completed on Google per month. It is estimated that approximately 45GB of data
is stored on earth and there has been approximately 42% annual growth in network
traffic and 49% annual growth in storage capacity," said Jeff Richardson,
executive vice president, LSI, in his opening keynote.

The highlight of the forum was a power-packed panel discussion that touched
upon the future trends in the evolution of data centers. Vic Mahadevan, VP,
product marketing and management, LSI, moderated the discussion. The seven
panelists included a cross-section of experts. Subram Natarajan from IBM
India/SA and Divyesh Shah from Sun Microsystems India represented the storage
companies on the panel. Ted Linnenkamp, Microsoft represented the software
company increasingly turning to cloud offerings. Pankaj Dhume of BMC Software
India was the face from the management tools community, while Dataquest editor,
Shyamanuja Das brought in the perspective of the independent analysts. Gerry
Smith and Manish Muthal from LSI were the other two panelists.

Two distinct, but related points that got highlighted in the discussion are
the need to create standards in data centers so that customer investment is
protected, prices come down and the complexity is better managed. Most panelists,
while agreeing that the need is to move towards such an eventuality, admitted
that today, we are nowhere near that. "We have to acknowledge that we have to go
a long way before we can say we are there," said Manish Muthal, answering a
question from LSI CEO Abhi Talwalkar, who was present among the audience.

Data centers are facing challenges on both business and technology fronts.
Hardware manufacturers, OEMs, and system builders have in particular been
struggling to provide systems management capabilities for their devices, that
integrate with the growing number of monitoring products, suites and frameworks
available in the market.

Today, data centers need a software based solution that can leverage the cost
advantage of a commodity, standards based computing without adding
administrative costs or compromising on the high availability, performance and
agility. Currently, data centers focus on executing business processes at the
lowest possible cost. At the same time, they have to fulfill service level
objectives for availability, performance and agility.

As the digital world becomes faster, there is a greater need for innovative
networking solutions for the home, business and public access networks. Vendors
are responding to this need with a wide array of solutions that would help
consumers and businesses stay connected. There is now a better perspective of
consumer needs. The key requirements from a data center should be easy
manageability, scalability, and above all it should adhere to the green IT
guidelines, which has gained utmost significance. Even the SMB sector has not
been left untouched by this trend.

Shah said, "For SMBs in this scenario, outsourcing becomes an option; hiring
and then training a good IT workforce and retaining them in the long run becomes
expensive." Natarajan added, "Data centers will have to remain heterogeneous to
manage the upcoming challenges.These changes related to data center are not
going to appear overnight, especially for SMBs."

"Majority of the players in the industry are supporters of universal
standards," said Linnenkamp. He hoped that this would emerge in the future. He
stressed upon the need for better levels of security.

The panel also deliberated on how data centers could get impacted in the
event of clouds becoming mainstream. "Will we see lesser numbers but bigger data
centers," asked Shyamanuja Das of Dataquest. "With companies coming with
end-to-end cloud offering, we are again going to move on to an era which we have
painfully emerged from: single vendor lock in. What is going to ensure that it
does not happen again?" he asked.

Shilpa Shanbhag

shilpas@cybermedia.co.in