“The surge in data volumes, driven largely by connected devices, has prompted companies to reassess their IT infrastructures to meet ever-increasing consumer demands,” said Giordano Albertazzi, President of Vertiv in Europe, the Middle East, and Africa. “While there are several directions companies can take to support this data surge, many IT leaders are opting to bring their facilities closer to the end user, or to the edge. Whatever decision companies make, speed and consistency of service will remain paramount for consumers.”

In previous years, Vertiv's forecasts identified trends related to the cloud, integrated systems, and infrastructure security, among others. Below are the five trends expected to impact the data center ecosystem in 2018:

1. Emergence of the 4th generation data center: Whether traditional IT rooms or 140-square-meter micro data centers, organizations are increasingly relying on edge computing. The 4th generation data center holistically integrates centralized and edge facilities, transforming these new architectures into more than just distributed networks.

This is already happening with new architectures, composed of scalable and cost-effective modules that leverage optimized thermal management solutions, high-density power supplies, lithium-ion batteries, and advanced power distribution units, providing near real-time capacity. Advanced management and monitoring technologies bring all of this together, enabling hundreds or even thousands of IT nodes to operate together to reduce latency and costs, increase utilization rates, reduce complexity, and allow organizations to add networked IT capacity when and where they need it.

2. Cloud service providers are shifting to colocation: Cloud adoption is happening so rapidly that in many cases, cloud service providers are unable to meet demand. In fact, some won't even try. They prefer to focus on service delivery and other priorities rather than building new data centers and are turning to colocation providers to meet their capacity needs.

By focusing on performance and scalability, colocation can meet demand more quickly while driving cost reductions. The proliferation of colocation facilities also allows cloud service providers to choose partners in locations that align with end-user demand, where they can operate as edge facilities. Colocation responds by offering areas of its data centers for cloud services or by providing entire facilities built to meet specific needs.

3. Reconfiguration of the mid-range data center: It's no secret: the biggest growth areas in the data center market are in hyperscale facilities (typically colocation or cloud service providers) and at the edge. With the growth of colocation and cloud resources, traditional data center operators now have the opportunity to reconfigure their facilities and resources that remain critical to on-premises operations.

Organizations with multiple data centers will continue to consolidate their internal computing resources, likely transferring as much as possible to the cloud or colocation facilities, while downsizing and leveraging rapidly deployable configurations that can scale quickly. These new facilities will be smaller, but more efficient and secure, with high availability and consistent with the mission-critical nature of the data these organizations seek to protect.

In areas where cloud and colocation adoption is slower, hybrid cloud architectures are expected to be the next step, combining more secure on-premises IT resources with a public or private cloud to reduce costs and manage risks.

4. High Density Arrives (Finally): The data center community has been predicting a major increase in rack power densities for a decade, but those increases haven't reached the expected level. Now, this is changing. While densities below 10 kW per rack are still the norm, 15 kW deployments are not uncommon in hyperscale installations, and some are slowly moving toward 25 kW.

Why now? The introduction and widespread adoption of hyperconverged computing systems is the primary driver. Colocation centers, of course, place enormous importance on their facility space, and high rack densities can deliver increased revenue. Advances in energy efficiency in server and chip technologies can only delay the inevitable adoption of high density for a limited time. However, there is reason to believe that a general shift toward higher densities can be viewed more as a marathon than a sprint. Significantly higher densities can fundamentally change the form factor of a data center, from power infrastructure to how organizations cool higher-density environments. High density is coming, although it will likely become established after 2018.

5. The world reacts to the edge: As more and more companies move their computing resources to the edge, there is a need to critically evaluate the facilities that house these resources and the ownership of the data they contain. This includes the physical and mechanical design, construction, and security of edge facilities, as well as complex issues related to data ownership. Governments and regulatory bodies worldwide will increasingly face the challenge of addressing and responding to these issues.

Moving data from around the world to the cloud or a centralized facility for analysis is too slow and complex, so more and more data clusters and computing capabilities are being placed at the edge—located in different cities, states, or countries, not necessarily where the company headquarters is located. Who owns the data and what are they authorized to do with it? The debate continues, but in 2018 those conversations will turn into concrete answers and actions.

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