As an IT specialist, what exactly do you think 2020 hold for data centers and the cloud? These are our educating guesses on Data center Trends & Cloud Predictions in 2020/2021. The Future Outlook for both public and private cloud.
1. Edge computing matures but requires a new business model
First and foremost, this is not hard to figure out, you will agree that everyone seems to love the idea of edge computing. As a matter of fact, Data center operators see it as a chance to reduce the heavy load on central servers. On the other hand, companies and businesses see it as a chance to have sub-10 millisecond response time. Cloud vendors such as Schneider Electric and Vapor IO are coming out with several models for placement at base stations, and 5G network is rolling out globally. Now come the problem of who will pays for it.
The information technology industry has a very long track record of dreaming up high techs and thinking of the business model later. The edge computing is a costly idea in search of organizations to own them.
2. Water Cooling Expands
Did you know that when Google first launched its Tensor Processing Unit AI chip’s version 3.0, they also released updates that it had switched to water cooling? They said they did so because air was no longer sufficient for cooling.
Since GPUs is currently hitting 300 watts and CPUs getting over 200 watts, only air cooling doesn’t give the perfect result any more. Research shows that water is a million times more efficient for heat removal than air. Also, more companies are overcoming their anxiety about the liquid coolant having a leakage.
3. More Artificial Intelligence (AI) to cover for human error
Datacenter Predictions: AI Moves In and Cloud Moves to the Edge. Data centers have several thousands of moving trends. They include the power system, cooling system, individual servers, and the network to connect all of them together. For a long time now, that has been manually configured and once they are perfectly in place, they will be left alone.
4. Data-center growth continues to the future
Let’s get one thing straight; the data center is not dying anytime soon. As of today, there are more increase in compute demands than ever especially with the arrival of artificial intelligence (AI), since the hybrid cloud has proven to have its expensive disadvantage. This specifically means that the data center is being given a new purpose. In the tech world, some workloads are others are being assigned to the data center while others are going to public cloud providers.
These workloads includes anything with massive data sets, such as artificial intelligence and machine learning (AI/ML), BI, analytics, because migrating them to the cloud is quite costly. With all these said, we can all see that the data center is changing. Its becoming more versatile and more powerful for the future.
5. Workloads are moving from Endpoints to Data centers
Truth be told, data in and of itself is useless until it is acted upon and processed. Our smartphone really isn’t the device for that function. Our personal computers (PCs), mobile smartphones, and tablets are heavy data collectors but not very suitable for any type of AI or analytics. Therefore, that data is usually sent up to the cloud for quicker processing. Similarly, the same applies to the Internet of Things (IoT).
6. Serverless computing & Micro-services take off
Virtualization is great, but it’s also resource-heavy. On the balance, it needs a full case of the operating system. This can limit the number of VMs on a server, even if it has large memory size. So, what is the solution? Its the microservices or containers and on the extreme, serverless computing. We all know that a container is as small as 10MB in size versus a few gigabyte (GB) of memory for a full virtual machine, and serverless, where you also run a single function app, is even smaller.
As apps go from monolithic to smaller, containers, modular pieces, serverless will become more functional, both on premises and in the cloud. The major key to the success of containers and serverless is that the technologies were created with the cloud and on-premises systems in mind and easy switch between the two.
7. Amazon’s AWS and Google focus on Hybrid cloud
Google and Amazon Web Services (AWS) came into the cloud market with no legacy and a sales pitch of a clean cloud play. On the other hand, IBM and Microsoft, had a big legacy software installed base and pitched hybrid cloud, striking a balance between on-premises systems and cloud.
This single act helped Microsoft to push to the number two position in the cloud market very quickly and has also provided IBM a considerable rocket-boost, as well. However, Google and AWS are currently wising up. Google is shoring up its on-premises services. To achieve this, they hired Thomas Kurian (ex-Oracle cloud chief), who was making a hybrid pitch at Oracle that brought him into conflict with Larry Ellison. Similarly, AWS has introduced a raft of new on-premises offerings to propel to further in the cloud market.
8. Bare Metal without Software continues to grow
What does this mean? The bare metal means that no software is required. All you have to do is to rent CPUs, memory capacity, and storage. When that is in place, you’ll have to provide your own software stack — all of it. Up till now, IBM has been the biggest supporter of bare-metal hosting followed by Oracle, and with a very good intention.
Bare metal is ideal for what’s called “lift and shift,” where you take your compute environment from the data center to a cloud provider without any changed to it. Just put the operating system (OS), applications, and data in another person’s data center.
Now, since Oracle and IBM are two key enterprise software vendors, it’s only normal that they would want people to keep using their software but run it in their data centers rather than shift to a SaaS provider. Conversely, Amazon Web Service is getting into the bare-metal scene, as are prominent hosting and cloud providers such as Rackspace, Internap and Equinix. This also appeals to enterprises as well as SMBs and for the same reason where they do not need to host the hardware.
9. Next year will come with reckoning for Oracle
Oracle really needs to make some tough decisions this before the end of the year, and quick too. From online review, you will quickly notice that their cloud business is uncertain and not keeping up with the big four players (1. AWS, 2. Microsoft, 3. Google, 4. IBM).
The organisation has been really silent about its hardware business, and now it has lost its cloud business leader. Oracle has not really made the leap of faith to the cloud as gracefully as Microsoft, but if they will to do it, am very sure it has to be now.
10. Cloud Service providers battle for Virtual Desktop Market
My research shows that Microsoft is not the only provider looking up to the desktop as a means of connecting to the cloud. By the same token, all of the key cloud vendors are interested in the virtual desktop market. Moreover, with popular Windows 7 reaching end of life in January 2020, it means 2019 will be a year of its transition to glory. 2021 and 2022 will bring its own techs. So the question is; are people willing to just jump to Windows 10 and thus cement Microsoft’s hold? Or will they accept things such as AWS WorkSpaces or Google Chromebooks that is fast rising?
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