Author
Laura Chen
Touring 37 cities across five continents, Datacenter Dynamics can be regarded as the weathervane of global data center field to some extent. Under the background that IT’s future lies in the cloud; while cloud is impacting data center design, what topics will DCD 2012 in Shanghai use to attract visitors?
Cloud Computing Brings Revolution to Data Centers
The topics of DCD in Shanghai—design, construction and operation, outsourcing decisions, and IT optimization—may seem cliché; however, in the context of cloud computing and big data, IT infrastructure has been completely subverted and innovated.
Before the emergence of cloud computing, the traditional data center was relatively independent within the IT infrastructure. In other words, like a well-defined assembly line, computing systems, storage systems and network systems didn’t interfere with each other; however, the system is not as efficient in the cloud computing environment. On one hand, cloud computing is based on data consolidation. The scale of the data center is expanding rapidly and simply managing and maintaining manually it is not only difficult, but increasingly costly. On the other hand, more enterprises are beginning to choose a simpler IT operation and maintenance mode, placing IT systems in the cloud.
At the end of 2011, the US-based NetworkWorld website conducted a survey on 276 CIOs on enterprises’ application plans of cloud computing. The survey shows that one-third of respondents already allowed ISPs to host IT applications on the public cloud. Another third of respondents were planning to hand part of their IT applications to ISPs. SaaS sites such as Box.net, which rely on virtualization technology, are becoming more popular. This increases the density of applications, resulting in data center application system perception, virtual machine migration and other new issues. Addressing these new issues requires cooperation between computing, storage and network systems.
When constructing data centers, we need to take advantage of intelligent and virtualized tools. Enterprises can also consider using the public cloud or hybrid cloud to simplify their IT operation and maintenance. From the cloud’s point-of-view, DCD topics can be regarded as “new wine in old bottles” rather than a cliché.
Miracles displayed at the CommScope booth on September 17
CommScope has carried out research and investment on the cloud computing data center from the very start. Our OM4 fiber 100G live demonstration at DCD Shanghai is a good example. Proprietary design and manufacturing techniques developed by CommScope Labs make CommScope connectivity solutions one of the most high-performance and high-reliability media helping computing, storage and network resources of the cloud computing data center work together.
Meanwhile, CommScope showcased the all-new imVision™ intelligent infrastructure management solution. The imVision solution can be seamlessly and reliably integrated with end users’ entire network, providing the user with higher network visualization, and allowing the user to track the physical location of all network devices in real-time. The imVision System Manager software records and monitors the network infrastructure through a Web-based graphical user interface.
The ex-generation of the imVision solution, the iPatch® intelligent infrastructure management system, has been widely used in enterprise data centers. One example is the construction of the FAW-Volkswagen Foshan factory data center. Through the iPatch system, administrators can monitor connected devices and receive instant warning of any unauthorized changes. They can also use the iPatch PC software to publish and change instructions, and display the implementation instructions to the technical staff on the iPatch screen. The administrators will be notified once the change is completed. Network diagrams in the iPatch database can be automatically updated ensuring information about the network physical layer is always up-to-date. This makes the allocation of new connections much simpler and allows administrators to pinpoint connection problems.
I am looking forward to seeing you at CommScope booth so we may show you our 100G demo and see if our intelligent infrastructure management solution is right for your data center.
