What’s in Store for Indian Data Centers in 2019?

By Anjani Kumar, Country Manager - INDIA & SAARC, Raritan

India has a rapidly growing market for data centers. A study titled "Data Center Market in India - Industry Outlook and Forecast 2019-2024" has predicted that Indian Data Centers market will reach approximately $4 billion by 2024, with a CAGR of about 9% during 2018-2024.

At the same time, the changing technology landscape is forcing traditional data centers to sit up and take notice. The explosion in data means that data centers need to ramp up operational efficiencies significantly. They need to grapple with challenges put forth by environmental concerns and rising costs.

There are several factors that are driving this change. In a recent report, Gartner predicted that we can expect approximately 30 per cent of data centers will fail to keep pace with growing demand. This will be because of delays in implementing the necessary machine learning and AI solutions. While the predictions seem quite dire, the good news is that it isn’t too late for data center managers to reboot their strategies to more effectively battle upcoming challenges.

While the latter prediction seems a bit on the pessimistic side, there is a bit of good news. By understanding the following factors, data center managers can adjust their operational strategies to more effectively combat upcoming challenges. If we look at the factors that will impact data centers in the future, there are some that absolutely stand out.

In general, there are 3 key areas that they need to focus on – innovation, security and risk, and value.

Innovation: Like other facets of technology, we need to see considerable innovation on the Data centers side too. More important, the innovation needs to be in tune with industry innovations and should be designed to meet the industry’s needs in terms of speed and delivery and efficiency. Also, data centers need to innovate for scale, given the pace which adoption is growing. There is no end point. The innovation has to be a continuous cyclical process, to keep pace with quantum of change.

Security and Risk: Indian Data Centers face considerable security risks due to the very nature of its operations. As risks evolve, it requires better security and risk management practices and thorough analysis of risks involved. Also, it is important that migration plans are simultaneously adaptive and reactionary to manage risk better.

Value: The popularity of Data centers rests on the immense value and utility that it provides to businesses. This value can be enhanced through the adoption of new developments in machine learning and AI solutions. If data centers don’t evolve, they might as well prepare to become redundant. Legacy data centers need to be updated and retrofitted to function with new-age models.

Here are some trends/ predictions that we foresee for data centers for 2019 and beyond.

• Multiple Colocation Facilities

As data centers seek to secure a growing volume of dispersed data, we can expect to see a trend towards multiple colocation facilities by 2020. This will also bring up a need for remote infrastructure. As managers evaluate data vault capacities to boost performance across locations we will greater emphasis on data aggregation, cleansing, analysis, and response.

• Dynamic Software 

In the next few years, we can expect to see approximately 70 per cent of enterprises adopting dynamic software solutions. This puts greater focus on security and flexibility, both for traditional data centers, as well as their cloud and edge counterparts. Organisations will need to think about connectivity costs, rack-level architecture, and accommodating the next-gen workloads.

• Smart IT

Reports predict that Machine learning and Artificial Intelligence (AI) solutions along with facilities systems will be used by approximately 50 per cent of enterprise-level data centers by 2020. Of course, as the technology evolves, there will be a growing demand for new skill sets in both internal and colocation data centers. One suggested approach for managers is to rely on trusted platforms and remote management solutions that increase reliability and scalability.

• Embracing Innovation

Over the next few years, we can expect to see a majority of enterprise-level data centers investing heavily in dedicated cloud platforms to gain more flexibility in their operations. This will help data centers to more effectively align business goals with technology solutions that leverage flexible consumption models.

Whether these predictions translate on the ground remains to be seen. But as data center managers prepare for the next stage, they need to account for a variety of factors including environmental concerns, increasing costs, growing data demands, and emerging technologies. Apart from leveraging some of the trends that we have detailed above, it will be critical to pick the right technology tools as well as the right partners to implement this quantum of change. By partnering with best in class power technology providers, data center managers can strengthen their operations and prepare for the industry's future.