But key trends show that data centres must achieve this by working smarter — not necessarily harder. While the world’s need for computing power and data storage continues to grow, the data centre of the future must improve efficiencies and reduce its environmental impact.
Likewise, businesses look to their data centre providers to guard critical data, provide flexibility, and streamline costs. Balancing these evolving needs will dominate data centre news for years to come as we move towards a more connected, intelligent, and environmentally friendly future.
The following are the top four data centre trends in 2023.
1. Automation
The first trend for the data centre of the future is the increased use of automation, machine learning and artificial intelligence (AI). Advancements in automation are helping businesses in almost every industry make the most of their data, streamlining workloads and gaining new, more profound insights.
Technology advancements will contribute to the overall performance of the data centre. Predictive analytics tools will help security and real-time monitoring teams spot potential issues ahead of time, addressing them before they impact performance. Likewise, data centre AI can highlight areas that could work more efficiently, such as cooling or energy usage.
For businesses, that will mean higher productivity from faster and more efficient resources. There will also be the potential to predict resource usage more accurately, helping to save costs and free up staff to work on other tasks.
2. Composability
The next data centre trend for 2023 is increased composability. Fundamentally, composability is how easily a component or resource can be used in different structures. An object is highly composable if it can be used in many ways across different types of systems. For example, a composable data centre will configure individual resources on demand according to workload needs – instead of a resource being dedicated to specific resources.
Data centre composability, therefore, means creating resources that can work with many different systems. Instead of dedicated or narrow-use resources providing only one service, data centres must employ pools of resources that can contribute to the deployment of various types of workloads, such as storage, networking or server tools. Likewise, implementing composable resources helps avoid stranded capacity within the data centre, improving efficiency and output accordingly.
Along with monitoring tools, these composable resources will be flexible — ready to contribute to the workloads that need them most. Companies will be able to take advantage of composable resources, quickly adapting to requirements and deploying resources that fit their needs. This leads to efficient, adaptable processes that save time and costs.
3. The total customer experience
The third trend is the total customer experience, as the exponential growth in data means that modern workloads require more computing power and faster networking. This places demands on cloud service providers and data centres in various ways, all affecting how they provide the best possible total experience to their clients.
Above all, digital transformation will allow data centres to provide additional value to customers. Edge computing will help providers run low-latency workloads closer to end users, while software virtualisation will create more budget-friendly options for many workloads. As private and public clouds combine to create more flexible and powerful hybrid cloud implementations, companies will leverage technology to do more with less.
The next is data centre security. In the days of data protection legislation, ransomware attacks and the reputational damage those bring, companies must be able to trust that their data centre provider offers top-of-the-range cybersecurity tools. Data centres must protect data, IT infrastructure, and the connectivity supply chain from many security concerns. They will also provide new access control initiatives, using AI and new technology to safeguard the data centres themselves.
4. Renewable energy
The final trend is a worldwide concern in which data centres will play a significant role. In the USA, for example, data centres consume around 2 per cent of all energy. As hyperscale and traditional data centres provide more power, create more heat, and use more cooling, improving power usage effectiveness and using renewable energy in data centres will be crucial to meeting sustainability targets.
Decreasing energy use and emissions will play a prominent role. Computing resources, such as CPUs, are increasing in density and power output each year. As each iteration of hardware improves on the previous version, users see faster speeds and increased workloads. But as a side effect, these resources use more power and create more heat.
To provide optimal performance and achieve sustainability targets, data centres use cooling techniques to dissipate the heat away from hardware. In the coming years, data centre sustainability will focus on using renewable energy sources, maximising cooling efficiency with AI and automation, and recycling as much on-premises waste as possible.
Summary
In recent years, many companies have moved into the cloud — and the world has not looked back. In 2023, data centres will continue to take steps towards providing a more efficient and cost-effective service, while minimising their impact on the planet.
Technology, meanwhile, continues to advance at a blistering pace. Newer, more powerful computing resources and automation tools allow us to do more work faster than ever before. Businesses should choose a data centre service provider that keeps up with technology, allowing them to employ the latest resources while getting the best value for money.
Our data centres provide colocation services that can help your business scale to meet the demands of the future. Our data centre locations allow you to run resources where you need them most, providing cutting-edge technology, cooling and networking options. Contact us today to learn more.