Recently, HP and research firm IDC took a look at some of the biggest trends they're seeing in the datacenter. These five hot new trends are having a big impact on computing today and the future of the cloud. But which ones are most important?

1) Blades

Blades will account for 29% of server sales by 2012. This market is growing quickly as customers are realizing the benefits of a bladed infrastructure: that is, space, time, cost and energy savings. Both enterprise and midsize customers are being impacted by this trend. (Source: IDC's Worldwide Quarterly Server Forecast, 2008Q1)

2) Going Green

Going green is less about being environmentally conscious and more about saving money. CIOs and IT managers are surprised to find that creating an energy-efficient, high-performance data center through power and cooling is much less expensive they they anticipated. The end result of going green is a reduction in overall costs (energy, space requirements, management, etc) which is savings businesses some serious dollars. 

3) Virtualization

By 2011 more than half of customers' workloads will be deployed in virtual machines. With every new advancement in this area, like integrated hypervisors for example, the need to intelligently control the data center is strengthened. Data center managers need to know how to build a unified infrastructure combining both the virtual and physical environments.  (Source: IDC Multiclient Study, Server Virtualization On the Move 2007)

4) Cloud Computing Means Scalability Is a Must

Data is growing at an exponential rate thanks to cloud computing. Large content-rich data, like streaming digital media (e.g. IPTV, video on demand, broadcast, etc.), static digital media (e.g. photo sharing, online music download, etc.), and web content hosting (e-mail, blogs, Web pages, etc.) are having the most impact. Cloud computing companies need solutions that can easily manage multi-petabyte scalability - without disruption.

5) Linux in the Enterprise

Worldwide Linux server shipments have increased by 35% since 2003. Currently, one out of every five servers runs on Linux and the adoption of Linux servers is expected to grow. The adoption rate will increase by almost 8% by 2012  (Source: IDC, Worldwide Quarterly Server Forecast, 2008 Q1)

If you want to learn more about these trends using a real world example, HP's Pentel Case Study makes for a good read. This company was able to reduce their datacenter footprint from 5 full racks to 1 by using a combination of blades, storage, and VMWare virtualization. They were also able to reduce their power and cooling needs. Those efforts led to a savings of over $200,000 in three years in reduced maintenance costs alone. Their I.T. department is more agile, Oracle performs up to 80% faster, and they can deploy a server in minutes. In other words, these trends are just about changing needs, they're also about saving money.

Out of all these trends, which ones are most important? We tend to think that scalability is going to be a big issue going forward, especially with the growth of web apps and their specific infrastructure needs. We've already seen what lack of scalability can do to a service - we almost lost Twitter, for example, as demand outpaced their ability to provide the service. Knowing the intelligent audience of readers we have here at RWW, we're interested in what trends you think are the most important. 

]]>Discuss]]> http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/five_big_data_center_trends_for_2008.php http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/five_big_data_center_trends_for_2008.php Trends Thu, 02 Oct 2008 05:31:40 -0800 Sarah Perez IBM has just announced the introduction of a new server designed specifically for Web 2.0 sites. This rack-mounted server is designed for running popular and heavily trafficked web sites like MySpace, Facebook, or any other site that requires the computing power of a massive data center with tens of thousands of servers.

The server, called the IBM iDataPlex, is a blade server running Linux and utilizing Intel's quad-core Xeon processors. The system is designed to directly compete with the "white box" servers that are commonly used by internet companies.

In addition to being extremely powerful, the iDataPlex also introduces what can be considered "green" features. That is, the sever uses 40 percent less power thanks to its efficient cooling system and unique form factor.

Traditionally, cooling systems blow air over servers back to front, and, as servers go deeper, more energy is needed to cool them. With the iDataPlex, the server is wider, but smaller - only 15 inches deep instead of the typical 25, which lets the fans run at a lower velocity, saving "about 67 percent on the fan energy alone," said Gregg McKnight, CTO of IBM's modular systems group, in an InfoWorld article about the system.

Additionally, an optional liquid cooling system allows the iDataPlex to run at room temperatures, no A/C needed. This will be a big help to the companies whose servers run out of these massive data centers today - often spending 10 - 30 times more on energy costs per square foot than a typical office building due to the need to power the servers and cool them.

Even without watercooling iDataplex is still at least 20% cooler then the conventional rack approach. This photo (above) was taken in IBM's Thermal Lab, showing the iDataPlex without the liquid cooled door (red) and with it (blue)

A Change for IBM

Typically, IBM and other server vendors produce expensive, high-end machines that have high levels of redundancy, but for Web 2.0 companies, that level of redundancy is not needed. If a server drops off, it just stays dead while the rest of the cloud picks up the slack seamlessly. In companies the size of Google, for example, dead machines are just left on the rack.

It's clear that IBM sees the writing on the wall - the enterprise datacenters of the future are going to be all about virtualization, green IT, service management, and cloud computing. As part of IBM's "Blue Cloud" initiative, the iDataPlex is a sign of IBM's commitment to the emerging cloud computing platform.

You can learn more about the new iDataPlex servers from this YouTube video:

The service begins its launch in Spain through subscribers to Telefonica's Blackberry service plans. Later this year, Unite Servers will be made available to Germany and others, though no word on when they will arrive in North America.