Micro Data Centers – The Small Wonder

India is a growing market and the businesses are complementing this growth by adopting breakthrough technologies which are highly efficient and cost-effective. The growth leads to leaps and bound increase in data and the consequent information generated, demands equal efforts to keep the information safe and organized. The key component of the information age, data, is seemingly innocuous in itself. The volume of data travelling across cyberspace is a testimony to the significance of data in not only a microscopic manner, like that belonging to one business, in one city, in one country; but in fact to that of the magnitude of information that all of these businesses generate day after day. Simply speaking, data may be looked at as the unit metric for an entire ICT infrastructure, combined with the process it supports. And this data, multiplied several times to account for several such setups, catering to numerous organizations, gives a feel of the scale at which it operates.

Data Center Deployment: Simplifying with Convergence

Indian businesses invest heavily in data center deployment. Immense amount of data floating between branches needs to be stored at one common center for the sake of easy usage and security. For large and medium-sized group enterprises, the traditional ICT systems of their branches face challenges such as: Without unified planning and standard architecture, hard to purchase, deploy and maintenance because of various vendors, cannot be unified and remotely managed in the headquarter, etc.

The Need for Businesses

Micro Data Centers reduce the risks generated by less efficient industrial installments, which may lead to increased downtime, and subsequently loss in productivity. Not only this, each micro data center is capable of catering to several needs, from storage, network, VoIP and so on. Along with this, comes the simplification of installation and management. Micro data centers allow for easy deployment, remote management and the benefit of data security and protection. Too many data centers add immense costs to operate, and decrease efficiency of storage and operations. Utilizing Micro Datacenters may be the answer to these issues, especially in organizations which are generating new data in great amounts. Another added benefit could be that all functions may be consolidated into a single data center, allowing for businesses to own multiple data centers without worrying about manageability. This means that an organization using a micro data center would be able to run several functions without the need to function on huge premises, thus decreasing the number of parties involved in managing and providing data center services. It may be looked upon as the single platform and single location, multi-functional destination for data storage, thereby simplifying life for system administrators and subsequently, businesses.

It is the era of mobility, and there is no reason for mobility to be restricted to the individual alone. Technology today is evolving and becoming more and more specialized. Each business, each organization requires customization in order to suit its need.

The Beauty of Simplicity

Growth in scale and number of businesses lead to the biggest trend in 2012-the growing complexity of data centers. Today, the data center is transforming beyond recognition, with the introduction of new technologies into everyday business. For a business to achieve its full potential, technology must carry the burden of added tasks that support the business, but may distract from the actual profit-making function. One must recognize then, the beauty, simplicity and importance of the micro data center

 

Micro Data Center: The Concept

A Micro Data Center (or MDC) is a versatile combination of hardware, software and cabling that serves as an end-to-end networking hub, similar to a telecommunications room or network room but much smaller scale than the typical enterprise data center. It is designed to provide the link between the Corporate and the Industrial Networks Compactness. A well designed MDC protects the integrity, availability and confidentiality of control and information data. It facilitates the connectivity from the plant floor up to the enterprise giving greater visibility into the manufacturing processes to identify problems, optimize processes, and plan for the future.

The defining characteristic of an MDC is that it houses a complete data center infrastructure in a single space-electronic devices, patch fields, cable management, grounding/bonding, power, and copper/fiber cabling-yet is sized to serve the demands of a manufacturing environment. The MDC is a new concept, representing the next phase in the business management. It is a centerpiece solution for branches with the design concept of simplified, open and "lights-out management". It incorporates the capacity of facilities integration, computing and storage, routing and switching, security and VPN, WAN and WLAN access, enterprise common applications such as VOIP, print and file server, etc. All of these are pre-integrated so that delivery and deployment become very fast and convenient. It has ambient sensors like smoke sensors, temperature and humidity sensors, water leakage sensors, intelligent PDU and dome camera. The MDC also can take the form of a networking hub that has no servers, existing primarily to tie cabling and switches together. For large manufacturing complexes or remote locations, an MDC can serve as a data collection node that passes manufacturing data up to the enterprise (ie, Store and Forward). Finally, an MDC can also house Virtual Machine (VM) systems for high reliability and efficient server utilization.

Micro data centers are managed through ‘Lights Out management (LOM)' which allows a user or system administrator to manage servers remotely. The program also allows not only monitoring, but it also facilitates the carrying out of operations like rebooting, shutdown, troubleshooting, alarm setting, fan-speed control, and operating system reinstallation.

The Customized Future

Simplifying complicated human life is the biggest need of the hour. The advancement of technology ensures this. The wonder of technology is experienced with its simplification, and simplicity not only in the function it serves, but in its own existence. The trend among consumers and businesses alike is moving toward compact, and user friendly technology. Computers turned into laptops which turned into tablets and now almost the entire function of a PC's operating system may be served on a phablet. The way forward is not only for consumer technology to be mobile and compact, but also for enterprise technology and ICT infrastructure to follow its lead, and incorporate simplicity in technology as a business practice.