The role of the traditional data center is poised to undergo a significant transformation, according to senior Gartner analyst David Cappuccio.
Organizations are moving to deploy radically more flexible and distributed IT infrastructure in order to deliver services in an increasingly interconnected world, Cappuccio argues in a blog post on the Gartner site.
The ripple effects of this transformation will be manifold, from a renewed focus on colocation centers to the ongoing upskilling that companies must provide their IT staff.
It will be business critical for organizations to adjust to the fast-changing realities of the marketplace and not to seek to accommodate IT development within their existing architecture, Cappuccio says.
“IT’s primary function will be to enable the business to be more agile, to enter new markets more quickly, to deliver services closer to the customer, and to position specific workloads based on business, regulatory and geopolitical impacts,” he writes.
“The role of the traditional data center is being relegated to that of a legacy holding area, dedicated to very specific services that cannot be supported elsewhere, or supporting those systems that are most economically efficient on-premises.”
80% of enterprises will have shut down their traditional data center in favor of more flexible, distributed arrangements by 2025, Gartner believes.
RETHINKING COLO
Cappuccio, who heads research into data center strategies and trends at Gartner, predicts these new demands will lead to a rethinking of the role of colocation centers within enterprise IT architecture.
Colocation providers will increasingly offer enhanced services “that go well beyond traditional power, floor space and support services,” he says. Benefits of such flexibility can include “reduced latency, improved customer experience, enhanced corporate reputation, stronger service continuity, geodiversity, improved compliance or mandated data location residency requirements.”
This will place increased onus on IT teams to set smart SLAs and KPIs to preserve the integrity of the end-user experience.
“The role of the traditional data center is being relegated to that of a legacy holding area, dedicated to very specific services that cannot be supported elsewhere, or supporting those systems that are most economically efficient on-premises.” – David Cappuccio, Gartner
CHASING ZERO LATENCY
Cappuccio’s argument comes as experts agree on the need for greater flexibility in IT architecture to improve end-user experience.
Writing recently for Data Center Knowledge, Anton Kapela, chief technology officer at EdgeMicro, said the edge would prove critical to the achievement of near zero latency for end users.
“The last key to achieving zero latency is completely dependent on where the most popular content and compute services reside,” Kapela says. “Currently, high-demand content lives very far away from users. It resides in centralized mega-data centers that are hundreds or thousands of miles away.”
Kapela believes the solution lies in replicating “the same colocation and peering ecosystem that married networks, data centers and users together during the internet boom of the 21st century… Let’s just repeat what is already proven and apply neutral microsite colocation and interconnect at the edge.”
