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EDITOR ’ S QUESTION

Some data center operators have started to provide both Compute and Storage Infrastructure As-a-Service . As a result of design developments , in the near future , data centers might need a specialized ‘ storage area ’ that is segregated from the rest of the cages for security and cooling reasons . This is because general storage uses less power than compute so has lower cooling requirements . Getting cooling right is paramount as you can easily waste cooling power unnecessarily .

There are also ways that data center cooling can be tailored to large storage areas more efficiently than if storage is spread out among every tenant ’ s cages – for example , when designing a floor plan of this nature , Compute-as-a-Service and Storage-as-a- Service would likely be walled off .

Another major consideration when designing a data center is the size and relative spread of the data centers themselves . Given most data is generated and consumed locally , moving it across long distances between huge facilities isn ’ t intuitive .

At Wasabi , we ’ re actively considering using a tight network of smaller cloud storage units , rather than a handful of very large storage facilities – the issue is making this work without losing efficiency at scale .

While there isn ’ t ‘ intelligence ’ on how to make this work in practice , in theory having a tight network of smaller storage facilities that are close to customers , close to the compute , aware of each other and even share metadata , is possible .

What this would mean in practice is local data could be cached and accessed locally across the world .

The need for this kind of storage architecture will be greatly increased by the rollout of 5G and would have huge benefits for many industries .

In healthcare for example , a patient ’ s records could be accessed instantaneously by doctors in different regions because the metadata is replicated globally , with every storage node able to function as an ‘ origin ’ server .

There are numerous ways you can ensure data center design contributes to optimum performance , but the cloud industry is evolving rapidly and so must data center design strategy if it is to maintain and improve upon efficiencies going forward .

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