Posts Tagged "Data Centers"

A Data Center is usually a physical location in which enterprises store their data as well as other applications crucial to the functioning of their organization. Most often these Data Centers store a majority of the IT equipment – this includes routers, servers, networking switches, storage subsystems, firewalls, and any extraneous equipment which is employed. A Data Center typically also includes appropriate infrastructure which facilitates storage of this order; this often includes electrical switching, backup generators, ventilation and other cooling systems, uninterruptible power supplies, and more. This obviously translates into a physical space in which these provisions can be stored and which is also sufficiently secure.

But while Data Centers are often thought of as occupying only one physical location, in reality they can also be dispersed over several physical locations or be based on a cloud hosting service, in which case their physical location becomes all but negligible. Data Centers too, much like any technology, are going through constant innovation and development. As a result of this, there is no one rigid definition of what a Data Center is, no all-encompassing way to imagine what they are in theory and what they should look like on the ground.

A lot of businesses these days operate from multiple locations at the same time or have remote operations set up. To meet the needs of these businesses, their Data Centers will have to grow and learn with them – the reliance is not so much on physical locations anymore as it is on remotely accessible servers and cloud-based networks. Because the businesses themselves are distributed and ever-changing, the need of the hour is for Data Centers to be the same: scalable as well as open to movement.

And so, new key technologies are being developed to make sure that Data Centers can cater to the requirements of a digital enterprise. These technologies include –

• Public Clouds
• Hyper converged infrastructure
• GPU Computing
• Micro segmentation
• Non-volatile memory express

Public Clouds

Businesses have always had the option of building a Data Center of their own, to do which they could either use a managed service partner or a hosting vendor. While this shifted the ownership as well as the economic burden of running a Data Center entirely, it couldn’t have as much of a drastic effect to due to the time it took to manage these processes. With the rise of cloud-based Data Centers, businesses now have the option of having a virtual Data Center in the cloud without the waiting time or the inconvenience of having to physically reach a location.

Hyper converged infrastructure

What hyper converged infrastructure (HCI) does is simple: it takes out the effort involved in deploying appliances. Impressively, it does so without disrupting the already ongoing processes, beginning from the level of the servers, all the way to IT operations. This appliance provided by HCI is easy to deploy and is based on commodity hardware which can scale simply by adding more nodes. While early uses that HCI found revolved around desktop virtualization, recently it has grown to being helpful in other business applications involving databases as well as unified communications.

GPU Computing

While most computing has so far been done using Central Processing Units (CPUs), the expansive fields of machine learning and IoT have placed a new responsibility on Graphics Processing Units (GPUs). GPUs were originally used only to play graphics-intensive games, but are now being used for other purposes as well. They operate fundamentally differently from CPUs as they can process several different threads in tandem, and this makes them ideal for a new generation of Data Centers.

Micro segmentation

Micro segmentation is a method through which secure zones are created in a Data Center, curtailing any problems which may arise through any intrusive traffic which bypasses firewalls or. It is done primarily through and in software, so it doesn’t take long to implement. This happens because all the resources in one place can be isolated from each other in such a way that if a breach does happen, the damage is immediately mitigated. Micro segmentation is typically done in software, making it very agile.

Non-volatile memory express

The breakneck speed at which everything is getting digitized these days is a definitive indication that data needs to move faster as well! While older storage protocols like Advanced Technology Attachment (ATA) and the small computer system interface (SCSI) have been been impacting technology since time immemorial, a new technology called Non-volatile memory express (NVMe) is threatening their presence. As a storage protocol, NVMe can accelerate the rate at which information is transferred between solid state drives and any corresponding systems. In doing so, they greatly improve data transfer rates.

The future is here!

It is no secret that Data Centers are an essential part of the success of all businesses, regardless of their size or their industry. And this is only going to play a more and more important factor as time progresses. A radical technological shift is currently underway: it is bound to change the way a Data Center is conceptualized as well as actualized. What remains to be seen is which of these technologies will take center stage in the years to come.

 

Reliable and affordable connectivity to leverage your Data Center and Cloud investments

To know more about Sify’s Hyper Cloud Connected Data Centers – a Cloud Cover connects 45 Data Centers, 6 belonging to Sify and 39 other Data Centers, on a high-speed network…

Disaster can strike anytime. Whether they are natural or inflicted by man, disasters have small chances of being predicted accurately. Whatever be the case, enduring and recovering from these disasters can be a pretty rough job for your enterprise.

Disasters can potentially wipe out the entire company, with the enterprise’s data, employees, and infrastructure all at risk. From small equipment failure to cyber-attacks, recovery from disasters depends upon the nature of the events themselves. Disaster recovery is an area of security management and planning that aims to protect the company’s assets from the aftermath of negative events. While it is incredibly tough to completely recover from disasters within a short span of time, it is certainly advisable to have disaster recovery systems in place. In the time of need, these DR plans can present an effective, if not quick, method of recovery from negative events.

The importance of a Disaster Recovery System

Prevention is better than cure, but sometimes, we must make do with the latter. We cannot prevent every attack that can potentially cripple our enterprise, but we must make sure that we have the resources to recover. The need for disaster recovery systems can arise from various situations, some being discussed below.

• The unpredictability of nature

It is estimated that about 4 out of every 5 companies, which experience interruptions in operations of 5 days or more, go out of business. The wrath of Mother Nature is certainly a contributing factor to this statistic. One can seldom predict when Mother Nature is about to strike. Earthquakes, tsunamis, tornadoes and hurricanes can cause irreparable damage to enterprises and businesses. Stopping these disasters is impossible; however, not having a disaster recovery plan in place is inexcusable. We cannot predict how much damage nature can cause to our company; hence, it is of prime importance that a disaster recovery system be in place to prevent your enterprise from falling prey to the aforementioned statistic.

• Technology failures can occur anytime

These days, customers want access to data and services every second of the day, every day of the year. Due to the immense pressure on your enterprise systems, it is possible that they may crumble. Machine and hardware failure can seldom be predicted, but it is certainly possible to resume normal work with minimum disruption and slowdown. The only way to do this is either by eliminating single failure points from your network, which can be extremely expensive, or by having suitable recovery systems in place. Having recovery plans, in hindsight, are perhaps the best bet for you to keep your enterprise going at full speed.

• Human error

“Perfection is not attainable, but if we chase perfection we can catch excellence.”

Humans aren’t perfect, and are bound to make mistakes. The nature of these mistakes cannot be predicted. In order to survive all these unpredictable phases, you need to have an effective disaster recovery plan in place.

Enough about the reasons behind backup plans.

Let’s look at what a good disaster recovery system should include.

Your disaster recovery system must include…

Each and everything that could potentially save you from having to start up your enterprise from scratch. Methods to recover from every potential interruption, from technical to natural, should be there in your DRP. These include analyses of all threats, data backup facilities, employee and customer protection, among other essential things.

With each passing day, you must also consider any additions or updates to your DR systems. Technology is improving day by day, and it is possible that what you’re currently trying to achieve may be made easier and quicker by the use of newer tech. Also identifying what’s most important, and where to innovate, is a crucial aspect of DR planning.

In order to ensure that your DR system is running at full speed, your enterprise can hold mock disaster recovery drills. This will help identify weak points in the system, and make people accustomed to the processes involved. It will make reacting to the actual disaster much more efficient and quick.

DRaaS

Disaster Recovery as a service has made it easier for enterprises to have disaster recovery systems ready. Various providers have reduced the load on entrepreneurs when it comes to preparing for disasters, by offering them custom made effective disaster recovery systems. Perhaps the most important thing one should do now is not wait. If your enterprise has a disaster recovery system in place, thoroughly test it for bottlenecks, if it doesn’t, well, get one!

 

Ensure business continuity with Sify’s disaster recovery as a service.

To know more about GoInfinit Recover
– Sify’s disaster recovery solution with no change to your IT setup…

At this very moment, industry experts and visionaries are designing the future of IT services and systems. The vision outlines a fully enmeshed and embedded role for technology in our daily lives – from non-invasive micro tech providing real-time medical care and smart home technology to microcomputers -a web of smart and predictive devices that will connect all the different parts of our lives.

But to make this vision a reality, we need IT systems that provide a strong and flexible foundation to jump-start these innovations. We need Data Centers that facilitate rather than obstruct innovation, Data Centers that are proactive and are able to anticipate workloads and respond quickly.

As data explodes and newer technologies come into play, the next generation of DCs is likely to incorporate one or all of the following features to support future business needs.

Software defined Infrastructure

Simply put, in a software-defined Data Center (SDDC) all the components of the Data Center – compute, storage, security and networking are virtualized and delivered as a service. All the infrastructure functions and operations are completely automated by software and this allows SDDCs to provide a high degree of flexibility, efficiency, and reliability to the entire infrastructure.

Hyper converged Infrastructure

Hyper-converged DC combines and integrates all the DC services and infrastructure components such as compute, storage and network in one single box. Along with reduced complexity and costs, hyper-converged DCs provide enhanced operational performance and better disaster recovery and backup facilities.

Robotics and Automation in DCs

While robots will not replace humans in Data Centers anytime soon, there is a move towards using automation to take over repetitive and monotonous work, freeing up DC engineers to focus on more important issues. Companies have started experiments using robots to measure temperature and humidity in its Data Centers and several robotics manufacturers have already developed small robotic devices geared towards Data Center work.

Green Data Centers

Billions of devices are producing data every second, which ultimately ends up, stored in Data Centers across the globe. Increase in DC size and numbers will result in a corresponding rise in energy consumption. Future DC architecture will strive to be Green, with energy efficiency and conservation strategy at its core.

As with all IT changes and evolution, DC design and architecture will be a reflection of the needs and challenges faced by businesses. The next generation Data Center is not a fixed product yet; industry experts are in the process of defining its various components. It is still a concept and an evolving work in progress and the next 5 years will be crucial in shaping the new fundamentals of the next generation Data Center.

With over 13 years of operational and technical expertise (or 500+ man years of experience) serving over 300 customers spread across various industry verticals, viz., BFSI, Telecom, Pharma, Retail, Manufacturing, Media, etc., Sify has an impressive portfolio of over 2,00,000 sq. ft. of white space spread across 6 concurrently maintainable Data Centers, 15 Tier II Data Centers, 6 State Data Centers and several more for private clients, all built to exacting specifications and best-in-class global standards.

Data Centers are the backbone of today’s IT world. Growing business, demand that the Data Centers operate at maximum efficiency. However, building Data Centers, maintaining and running them involves a lot of operational expenses for the company. It is important for companies to look for options that can help them lower Opex for their Data Centers. Proper capacity Planning, advanced monitoring techniques, and predictive analysis can help companies to achieve these goals and help improve business growth. Real-time monitoring helps Data Center operators to improve agility and efficiency of their Data Centers and achieve high performance at a lower cost.

Today’s digital world requires constant connectivity, which in turn requires all time availability. But there could be several things that could cause outages – like overloaded circuit chip, air conditioner unit malfunction, overheating of unmonitored servers, failure of UPS (uninterrupted power supply) and power surge. So how do we ensure availability? Implementing DCIM (Data Center Infrastructure Management) technologies can help you improve reliability. DCIM systems monitor power and environmental conditions within the Data Center. It helps in building and maintaining databases, facilitate capacity planning and assist with change management. Real-time monitoring helps improve availability and lower Opex.

Servers and electronic devices installed in Data Centers generate a lot of heat. Overheated devices are more likely to fail. Hence, Data Centers are usually kept at temperatures similar to refrigerators. Thus most of the power in a Data Center is consumed for cooling purpose. There are various techniques and technologies that Data Center operators can implement to save energy. Recent strategies like free cooling and chiller-free Data Centers, expand the allowable temperature and humidity ranges for Data Center device operations. Implementing these strategies help save energy costs. A telecommunication giant Century Link had an electricity bill of over $80 million in 2011 which made them think of a solution to lower this cost. CenturyLink implemented a monitoring program. With this monitoring program, their engineers were able to safely raise the supply air temperatures without compromising availability and with this solution CenturyLink was able to save $2.9 million annually.

As per ASHRAE (American Society of Heating, Refrigeration and Air Conditioning Engineers) new guidelines, the strategies like free cooling and chiller-free Data Centers can offer substantial savings and one might expect Data Center operators would make use of these seemingly straight forward adjustments. However, as per a survey, many Data Center operators are not yet following these techniques and average server supply air temperature for the Data Center is far cooler than ASHRAE recommendations.

Most of the Data Centers are provisioned for peak loads that may occur only a few times in a year. Server utilization in most of the Data Centers is only 12-18% or may peak at 20%. However, these servers are plugged in 24x7x365. In summary, though the servers are idle they are drawing the same amount of power that other operational servers are drawing. Power distribution and backup equipment implemented in Data Centers also cause substantial energy waste. Similar to cooling strategies, most of the owners employ alternate strategies to improve power efficiency. However, most of them are on the computer side. Increasing density of the IT load per rack, with the help of server consolidation and virtualization, can offer substantial savings, not only in equipment but also in electricity and space. This is an important consideration when a Data Center is located in constrained energy supply or electricity situation in the context of high real estate prices, as in most of the urban areas.

Increasing density leads to concentrated thermal output and needs modified power requirements. The effective way to maintain continuous availability in high-density deployments is real-time monitoring and granular control of the physical infrastructure. Power proportional computing or matching power supply to compute demand is the recent innovation that few of the operators are using to improve energy efficiency. Few operators use dynamic provisioning technologies or power capping features already installed on their servers. However, raising inlet air temperatures causes the risk of equipment failure. Without an in-depth understanding of the relationship between compute demand and power dynamics, implementing power capping increases the risk of the required processing capacity not being available when required. Without real-time monitoring and management, there is a high risk of equipment failure in a Data Center.

Real-time monitoring helps businesses get critical information to manage possible risks in the Data Center. Monitoring helps improve efficiency and decrease costs, enabling businesses to have availability and saving. They can lower Opex and still maintain high availability.

With the help of Real-time monitoring, a small issue can be spotted, before it becomes a large problem. In a smart Data Center, several thousands of sensors across the facility collect the information regarding air pressure, humidity, temperature, power usage, utilization, fan speed and much more – all in real time. All this information is then aggregated, normalized and reported in a specified format to operators. This allows operators to understand and adjust controls in response to the conditions – to avoid failures and maintain availability.

Monitoring has lot many benefits. Monitoring data can be used by cloud and hosting providers to document their compliance with the service level agreements. Monitoring data allows operators to automate and optimize control of physical infrastructure. Real-time monitoring gives visibility at a macro and micro level, for businesses to improve client confidence, increase Data Center availability, energy efficiency, productivity and at the same time reduce their operational expenditures by optimizing Data Centers with the help of monitoring data.

 

Today’s growing businesses need instant application deployments and deliveries at a much higher speed. While it is a major challenge for IT administrators, Software Defined Networking (SDN) has helped organizations to achieve this goal with the help of automation tools. SDN helps businesses to achieve flexibility and scalability with the platform that can efficiently handle the demanding network needs of present and future growth. SDN has made deployments of applications and business servers more speedy and agile. Cloud architectures are able to deliver automated, on demand application delivery and mobility on a scale required by SDN. SDN helps enhance the benefits of Data Center virtualization by increasing resource utilization and flexibility, thus reducing the overhead and infrastructure costs. SDN has a great contribution in converging management network and applications into an extensible and centralized orchestration platform, that can perform automation tasks of provisioning and configuring the entire infrastructure. This assists businesses in building a modern infrastructure, that can fulfil the demand of delivering new applications and services at a much faster pace than possible now.

With the legacy architectures and operating models, current Data Centers are finding it difficult to scale as per the required demands of today’s bandwidth hungry mobile data applications and consequent huge increase in traffic volume. Disaggregated virtual Data Centers and the multi-tenancy trend is creating further challenge in application deployments, delivery and provisioning. Operators need more capacity with the flexibility to allocate resources dynamically – to when and where they are needed most. Current demands need enhanced efficiency and networks that can dynamically adapt to the surroundings. The new SDN technology is the perfect solution for these problems. SDN by abstracting network elements, creates an open environment where network resources can be orchestrated to provide a fast, open, scalable and flexible network that is simple to manage. SDN solutions increase network efficiency by taking transformations from Application Layer and using that data to control network with increased application responsiveness.

SDN allows network administrators to have programmable, centralized control over the network traffic, without having actual access to physical network devices. It separates the control plane from the data plane and thus allowing external control of the network. Separation of the control plane and the data plane allows top level decisions to be made from management device with the knowledge of network, without having device centric configurations. By separating the control plane from the data plane, SDN makes the network, programmable and uses SDN controller to program switches, using industry standard protocol like OpenFlow.

Network orchestration and virtualization are the key to SDN that helps achieve flexibility. The most important goal of SDN is to implement flexible networks that can be provisioned dynamically. Network orchestration, network programmability, network virtualization and centralized control are the major factors that define SDN.

SDN and Network Orchestration

SDN is basically a mesh of technologies to control network hardware. Network devices have network operating systems which manage the internal device operations. SDN needs network operating systems to offer API that allows external software to configure the device. SDN applications use a network controller as a gateway, in order to access APIs on the devices. OpenDaylight is the most popular and widely available gateway. The consumption of the APIs offered by devices, enable the offering of end-to-end configuration services across many network devices. Orchestration can be described as the use of automation to provide services, by using applications that drive the network. Orchestration is the most important factor in Software defined network.

SDN and Network Virtualization:

IT operators are finding that network performance could be a bottleneck to deliver speed, agility and bandwidth that is required for today’s modern application. SDN and Network virtualization, along with other solutions like 10Gigabit Ethernet and Ethernet fabrics, are amongst the technologies that can efficiently address the problem of network performance and provide agility. Data Centers are required to handle more data and transactions resulting in network growth and expansions, which add significant complexity in IT provisioning and management. Network virtualization and SDN provide a solution to network architectures that they can use to design models that efficiently cater to demands of the business critical applications.

Implementing Network virtualization with SDN, IT operators can add flexibility and scalability to current network management. SDN based network virtualization decouples virtual network from the physical network. Today businesses demand quick virtual network deployments with diverse requirements and need most of the network functions to be automated. There are numerous ways network virtualization can be defined in SDN.

How SDN provide network flexibility and Scale?

Software defined networks provide flexibility to configure, secure, manage and optimize network resources using automated SDN programs. APIs offered by network systems of devices, facilitate the implementation of common network services such as routing, security, access control, multicast, bandwidth management, storage optimization, energy usage and allows policy managements. SDN provides much flexibility that allows network programming and management at a scale which traditional networks failed to provide. SDN, by decoupling Control and Data planes result in advantages such as high flexibility, programmability and a centralized network view. SDN is considered to be a solution to provide a flexible and scalable architecture. SDN offers higher opportunity for programmability, network control, automation and thus allows network operators to build highly scalable and flexible network, that quickly adaptable to changing business needs. It provides flexibility with new network capability and services that does not require to configure individual devices or does not need to wait for vendor releases. Centralized control and management of network devices improve automation and management. Centralized and automated management of network devices result in fewer configuration errors and increased network reliability and security.

SDN is the solution for future networks to become significantly intelligent, scalable and flexible. With the help of SDN, network virtualization and network orchestration, it offers network architects an opportunity to provide a truly innovative, flexible and scalable network solution, that will be more efficient and cost effective.

Data is the most critical asset of any organization and businesses are faced with the imminent challenges of managing and governing data while ensuring data compliance. Data management is critical for every company to improve business agility with up-to-date information available anywhere, anytime to the employees who need it most. There are entire ecosystems that grow perennially around Big Data and Data Analytics, which make enterprises aim for significantly critical tools to manage everyday data.

With businesses realizing the dynamism of what can be done with their data, they are moving on from their existing resources to well-equipped Data Centers to aid better data management. Data Centers have become top priority for businesses across the globe to measure up their IT infrastructure requirements. With this shift in addressing information, Data Centers have moved beyond being just an additional storage facility. Infact, they have emerged as a key business parameter. Here is why Data Centers are necessary for enterprise businesses.

Consolidated Leadership: As an enterprise business, you have to recognize the potential in terms of leading, managing and governing your organization. Therefore, you should consider the enterprise level IT infrastructure provided by a potential Data Center service that helps your enterprise with lesser makeshift in different parts of the business. This results in consolidated leadership, centralized management and a stable governance approach to help better business decision making, for the benefit of the entire enterprise.

Reduced Barriers: Enterprises have so many facets and managing each aspect of the business is quite demanding. With the common goal being the customer, every segment of the enterprise shares the same business processes, ideologies, investment plans and capital expenditures. But due to its enterprise nature, the business is often dispersed in terms of location, products and services. This results in lack of engaging the customer across various operations of the company. With an efficient Data Center solution for enterprise business, you can reduce barriers to internal operations that affect customer service. With a convenient data management and flow, managed hosting services offered by an expert provider, will help you strengthen your ability to engage the customer across your operations.

Higher Margins: Enterprises are increasingly recognizing the growing importance of a Data Center. Investing in a tactical Data Center solution will help enterprises avail scale cost, data security and service efficiencies. Data Center service providers enable enterprises to customize solutions as per local requirements without compromising on the elemental course of the core business process. With the expansion of business, enterprises have to take account of additional resources. But with Data Center solutions, you can leverage the technical resources promptly and cost-effectively. In addition, if you require fewer systems or less storage, your provider will simply reduce implementations as per requirement. It is one of the major reasons why enterprises go for vendors who offer services, with costs incurred as per their service usage.

Data Storage and Management: Data storage needs consistently increase in an enterprise and keeping pace with the requirement surge, Data Centers continue to push the horizons of tangible capacity. Innovative ways of data management and storage are being introduced by Data Centers that instigate more enterprises to branch out into the utilization of Cloud Computing. Data Centers as well as companies are focused on meeting data storage demands that integrate both cloud and physical storage capabilities. This shift in the technology is at the cusp of driving M&A activities resulting in exponential growth in data gathering and collaboration that further enhance the need for data storage.

Safety: Given the sheer amount of data accumulation and transaction in today’s competitive environment, data security has become the top priority of every enterprise business. It has become imperative for every company to put efficient systems in place that are not only updated frequently but also monitored regularly. Constant monitoring of the systems allow you to maintain its security as potential risks and attacks are detected at the earliest. That’s why enterprises rely on third party Data Center solutions with expertise and monitoring processes to identify risks and breaches within the required time frame to be able to deal with them effectively. Most vendors offer multi-tier infrastructure setup, to effectively secure valuable data of enterprises. Besides technological security of the data, vendors also emphasize on physical security of the Data Centers, ensuring surveillance, access management, intruder alarms and physical security systems. Moreover, quick recovery processes and data retrieval in shortest turnaround time are also offered in times of environmental disasters.

Better Growth Opportunities: Most enterprises are embracing Data Center solutions after understanding the crucial role data plays in the growth of their ventures. With the advancement, Data Centers bring in the business and technology realm. And enterprises are increasingly becoming aware of managing their company from the prospect of fetching more resources to utilize high potential and growth opportunities. Your business can leverage the scale, to dominate the market with the assistance of a competent Data Center service. All you need is a proficient vendor who can help you monitor and control your data with a robust infrastructure, by automating and integrating Data Center management.

The relentless growth in the volume of data created every day, has compelled Data Center administrators to integrate new technologies and processes. With the global popularity of cloud computing, the role of Data Centers has extended beyond providing enough storage capacity with data security. Data Centers – optimized with various tools and services, are now transformed into strategic business assets. Here are five cool features of next generation Data Centers.

Software Defined Data Centers (SDDC)

In IT, everything is literally virtualized and delivered as a service. And the virtualization of Data Centers is the next logical step. The virtual layer is taking over in Data Centers, making them flexible, highly secure and extremely agile. Infrastructure and network, both are not just virtualized in a software defined Data Center but are delivered as a service also. Many mainstream mega-scale Data Centers are moving forward to gain edge with software-defined Data Centers.

Data Center Operating Systems (DCOS)

Data Centers have a diversified need for an extended control layer and the interconnectivity in Data Centers depend upon Data Center management. Many providers deploy Data Center operating control layers that manage resources, users and virtual machines to meet the needs of improving scalability of management infrastructure. Aiming at greater scalability, Data Centers are now better equipped for controlling various crucial components ranging from chips to cooling systems. The DCOS layer has considerably enhanced infrastructure due to its integration into every critical aspect of every Data Center.

Infrastructure Optimization with Agnostic Data Center

The next generation Data Centers will have layered management tools that can pool resources logically as per required workloads. This kind of infrastructure will only be obtained with an agnostic Data Center that lets admin to create more powerful and scalable cloud platforms. The Data Center will become much more abstract and with infrastructure optimization, vendor lockdown can be prevented. Moreover, administrators get to manage traffic influx while leveraging hardware and software optimization. In future Data Centers, what will matter is that you smoothly present resources to the management layer irrespective of the kind of hardware deployed, enabling clients to integrate with outside technologies, flawlessly.

Better Control Layers

Each Data Center hosts a diverse variety of systems. Therefore, the control layer also needs to be greatly diversified. And since the management console integrates into APIs, it can grow exponentially to keep pace with the increasing Data Center footprint. The new-age Data Centers allow API integrated management consoles to render the big data clout, manipulation and management along with allocation of resources. Furthermore, you can even vie for better multi-tenancy options and optimum cloud scaling by embracing API integrated networking technologies.

Greater Logical and Physical Automation

With the continuous enterprise popularity of cloud computing, vendors lose sleep over supplying application performance and predictability. It is not easy to achieve a fully functional, automated Data Center environment. Hence, introduction of robots in Data Centers will be one of the most basic features of next generation Data Centers. It will provision the resources more actively.

 

A growing number of organizations are adopting cloud computing to meet the challenges of deploying their IT services as fast as they can and addressing their dynamic work load environment there by maximising their ROIs (Return on Investments).

Across the globe companies have started to view hybrid cloud as a transformative operating model – a real game changer that presents the wealth of opportunities to businesses. The two mantras which helps you to follow while adopting this technique is Enhanced agility and Overall cost savings.

Cloud computing help’s the users to access the IT resources faster than the traditional Data Centers. It also provides improved manageability requires less maintenance. This technological service also helps the users to access the resources they need for a specific task. This not only prevents you from incurring cost for computing resources which are not in use, but, improves the operational efficiencies by reducing cost and time.

By adopting Cloud computing, businesses can rapidly integrate and deliver services across the other adopted cloud environments and thereby improving business agility so also lowering the costs. Once businesses recognize this they need to choose the cloud computing option that best fit their business requirements.

Like public cloud model, private cloud models also offer seamless access to applications and data with minimal IT support. But in private cloud the service will be offered only to a particular organization. Two common types of clouds are Integrated stack and Custom cloud. The key benefit of integrated stack is pre testing and interoperability to reduce operational risks and faster deployment time as the stack is most often delivered as a single bill of material. And the importance of custom cloud is, a modular plug & play approach that allows organizations to build cloud infrastructures in smaller increments, adding capacity when needed.

Hybrid model is a combination of public and private cloud models. Now a day’s every organization started looking and adopting it due to its cost benefit. Getting into a hybrid model and the key to success is, understanding how to get started on your hybrid cloud. First of all you need to know the integration method. The dominant strategy in creating a hybrid cloud that ties traditional Data Centers with public cloud services involves the use of a front end application. Most companies have created web based front end applications that give customers access to order entry and account management functions, for example, many companies also used front end application technologies from different vendors to assemble the elements of applications into a single custom display for end users. You can use either of these front end methods to create a hybrid cloud.

The front end application based hybrid models, the applications located in the cloud and the Data Center run normally; integration occurs at the front end. There are no new or complicated processes for integrating data or sharing resources between public and private clouds.

A business can choose from a vast array of potential organizational structures. Lateral organizations, top down organizations and other type of organizational structures can all be combined into a hybrid structure. This allows a company more flexibility in distributing work and assigning job rolls. It can also be beneficial in small businesses where there are fewer employees to manage daily operations.

Hybrid structure also helps the organization to choose Shared Mission where it creates a shared mission and allows it’s employees to work on a different projects and in different sectors. This structure creates a unified team of individuals with a common goal and different experience and interest levels. Each employee is able to perform work in the areas he/she best suited to, moving from project to project and reporting to different individuals as and when it is required.

Another example of hybrid structure is Market Disruption, through which when an organization adopts itself into a market and overcomes traditional barriers of the market such as advertising budgets that could cripple financially smaller organizations. Here considering the B2B perspective, this structure can ride the wave of market disruption to a peak of creating a massive media blitz that fuels product development and demand.

The next benefit to the hybrid organizational structure is the Massive Scale that can be reached by its use. Instead of having a top heavy, traditional structure of management and employees, a hybrid organization uses a spider web based structure involving groups of individuals, sometimes in different geographic areas, working together to accomplish shared goals. This also removes the problem of distribution pipelines slowing down access to the finished product.

Ease of maintenance is another attractive characteristic. It is because cloud computing architecture requires less hardware than distributed deployments. Fewer dedicated IT staff members are necessary to maintain the integrity of the cloud’s infrastructure particularly during peak hours.

Cloud computing also supports the real time allocation of computer power for application based on actual usage. This allows cloud operators to meet the demand of peak load hours accurately without over provisioning, increasing the clouds efficiency while freeing up additional capacity for on demand deployment. From an IT perspective, support for rapid provisioning and deployment is another attractive characteristics that appeal to growing enterprises.

Cost reductions, easier implementation & maintenance, and a better flexibility are the significant benefits of cloud deployment.

Operating costs are controlled by a good design and implementation of the same. Over the long term it is very critical to optimize both capital and operating expenses. Every industry has its own leaders, with a unique jargon and cultural conventions that B2B marketers must take into accounts.

 

With the businesses running across the globe, at different geographic locations, current enterprise systems have become large and overly complex. Applications and data are fundamental to business and the smallest downtime can cause millions of losses. Imagine a natural catastrophe to strike at any location making data loss. Rebuilding infrastructure and getting data recovered is next to impossible thing if Business Contingency or Business continuity Plans (BCP) are not in place. Disaster Recovery is a subset of BCP. It is vital to have Disaster Recovery Plans ready. In this article, we will see what a disaster recovery is? What is Disaster Recovery Plan and what are the available solutions.

What is Disaster Recovery?

Disaster Recovery basically means getting vital infrastructure recovered and protecting from significant damages. It involves a security planning which includes policies and procedures to maintain business continuity in case of disaster or disruptive events. Loss of Data or disruption of service causes critical financial impact. Thus, it is very much important that your disaster recovery plan is ready in place in order to come out of disasters with minimal impacts.

What is Disaster Recovery Plan?

Disaster Recovery Plan also referred as business continuity plan or business process contingency plan has the procedures and policies described in order to deal with the disaster to make sure that the business critical functions can be continued without disruption or at least with minimal disruptions

What are Disaster Recovery Solutions?

Traditional disaster Recovery strategy involves building a DR infrastructure where you need to take regular backups of your business critical data and applications, have them up to date on your DR locations which is at a geographically different location. If you want, you can work with a traditional availability services partner who can host your DR environment. However, the traditional disaster recovery method is cost and resource exhaustive as compared to modern DR solutions.

There are easy to manage and affordable disaster recovery solutions now available in market, such as Cloud Based Disaster Recovery and Recovery as a Service (RaaS)

Cloud Based Disaster Recovery

Cloud computing, since based on virtualization, can virtualize the entire server with its operating system, patches, applications and its entire data in a single virtual server. This virtual server can be backed up to an offsite Data Center. The data can be easily transferred from one Data Center to another and can be recovered easily. Since virtual server is hardware independent, the huge cost, the resource management and related planning for managing the hardware, get reduced to minimal amount, thus proves to be a cost-effective and efficient approach of disaster recovery.

Recovery as a Service (RaaS)

Recovery as a Service also referred as Disaster Recovery as a Service (DRaaS) is service where cloud computing plays key role in protecting an application and related data from a natural disaster or any event of service disruption by fully recovering it on cloud. In case of RaaS, your physical or virtual servers, applications are replicated to the cloud, so in the event of a disaster it can be brought back online immediately. Third party providers provide RaaS Services either through contract or pay-per-use basis and accordingly DRaaS requirements and expectation are contract or pay-per-use basis and accordingly DRaaS requirements and expectation are documented in Service Level agreements, thus gives a flexibility in DRaaS contracts. The Key here is that in the event of a disaster the DRaaS service provider should meet the defined recovery time and recovery point objectives.

Data Center Efficiency is a flexible term originally used to characterize the efficient use of energy in a Data Center. But over the years, the usage of this term has expanded to other entities such as storage, accessibility, security, networks and IT assets. Every Data Center around the world is focused on increasing its efficiency. And here are the top five things for Data Center efficiency that further enable you to drive costs out of your IT infrastructure.

Improve energy efficiency

Energy is the core of every Data Center. Power and thermal management give you a long-term strategic advantage. Cooling the equipment is indispensable and that requires a lot of power. But if you use a containment system, you may be able to reduce energy usage by 8-10 percent. And if you are yet to decide on a location, consider a place with a moderate climate, which may give you some advantage over operating a full-fledged HVAC system. You can also switch to hardware that are faster and require less power such as SSDs over hard-disk drives.

Focus on storage and capacity

Rapid data growth fuels the increasing demand for capacity storage in Data Center. And while it’s a challenge for Data Center management, it is not feasible to purchase new storage solutions every time, given the ever-increasing data. You will have to take the do-more-with-less approach to avoid the high cost of ownership. At this point, you can benefit from adopting performance analytics software. You must also monitor devices, troubleshoot drives and improve drive management processes to make sure that drives are working optimally and identify potential issues well before they affect processes.

Enhance data security

Data security is the nerve center and with the recent high-profile security breaches, it has become top priority for the management. It is imperative to improve comprehensive security measures. Data security needs vary from one organization to another and you should employ encryption for data as per your organizational needs.

Consider virtualization

With virtualization, you can bundle numerous data and computing processes into a smaller footprint, which leads to reducing life-cycle cost and adding efficiency. Virtualization means your data will require less space and power. You can replace large physical servers with a few machines that run numerous Virtual Machines (VMs), which can also serve your storage needs with virtual disks. Virtualization will ensure a modular infrastructure that incorporates networking, storage and servers on a single computing platform.

Strategies for avoiding disaster

Coming up with strategies to avoid disasters may not seem like much but in the long run, it adds to the efficiency of your Data Center. There is a growing threat of common natural and man-made disasters and planning to overcome possible failures is a priority for organizations. Locations, building designs, power standards and alternative recovery locations are the focus to avoid issues post disaster.