The Intrinsic Relationship Between Cloud Computing and Data Centres

Microsoft Ramps up Cloud Data Center Spend

above article via datacenterknowledge.com

Infrastructure to facilitate Cloud Services is only going to get bigger, faster, for the next few years. Not just with companies like Microsoft building Data Centres, but also other big technology companies such as Google, Facebook, Apple, Amazon etc.

Additionally as smaller companies look to utilise cloud services, the demand for colocation Data Centres is also going to increase massively.

Could the future hold a bursting of the cloud bubble?

At this point in time, I can’t see that happening. Transitioning from locally saved data and software application use, to cloud based equivalents, seems to be a rising trend at the moment.

Granted, this is heavily driven by the technology providers, but new technology has a habit of snowballing, once it has taken sufficient foothold in the consumer consciousness. Remember the rise of smart phones? Having trickled along with early adopters using smartphones from Nokia, Motorola and the like; once the iPhone hit the market, the use of smart phones rocketed.

Case in point: Recent news shows that iPhone sales have fallen for the first time. Could this be the start of the Smart phone bubble bursting? I suspect not, as there are many users who regularly update their handsets, I expect sales figures to continue a slow fall, until reaching a plateau, where they will likely remain until any future significant technology changes.

Ultimately, if cloud services are utilised to their fullest, the next big technology trend may be the transition from smart end terminals (smartphones, tablets, laptops), that process applications locally to the device; to dumb terminals, that merely reflect the remote processing of applications within the cloud (similarly to the Microsoft Office 365 offering).

 I see the biggest threat to the future of data centres, being the reaching of a saturation point of physical space in which to build the data centre itself.

If every end user currently operating applications locally, was to transition to a cloud service, the necessary Data Centre infrastructure required to facilitate this would need to be exponentially greater than it currently is. Is there sufficient space on the planet in which to accommodate sufficient Data Centres themselves? Not only in the physical location, but in the availability of sufficient power to run the facility at maximum levels?

 The continuing technological advances in CPU’s and associated server technology, much as Moore’s Law dictates (though it is argued that Moore’s Law may be coming to an end, as technological advances slow), may offer an interim solution.

With opportunities to refit existing Data Centres with more efficient computing capability, allowing the Data Centre itself to host and process more data. This may, or may not require the refit of the power and cooling facility of the Data Centre to match the advancing CPU/server technology.

 On a side note, there is significant environmental incentive to reducing the necessary power consumption of Data Centres (primarily to service the cooling of the server racks).

If this can be achieved, the upgrade of a Data Centre may be driven by factors other than advances direct CPU/server technology.

There is however, a direct relation between the heat output of the server CPU running at full capacity and the necessary cooling required to maintain the optimal functionality of the server CPU. Therefore, if the Maximum heat load of server CPU’s can be reduced, the cooling capacity of the Data Centre of the facility can also be reduced.

 The Prospect of (light based) Photonic Processors currently in development, seem to offer the best prospect of achieving a significantly lower heat load. With the added advantage of having significantly faster processing capability, they will also allow compatible Data Centres to provide significantly greater performance and perhaps higher density of servers (dependant on rack logistics, spatial restrictions and infrastructure capability).

 In summary, the requirement for Data Centres seem set to grow for the foreseeable future.

I do not see this as likely to change any time soon, though as technology has a habit of surprising, I remain open to any possibility in the future.

 What are your thoughts?