Jun 24, 2021
0 Data Center

Data Center Checklist – Key Pointers to Consider

Data Center Checklist

In today’s Data-Driven world, Data Centers have an important & indispensable role to play. They are the home to numerous servers that drive the Internet and networking. Recently, the world has witnessed a massive transition in the technologies being deployed in these Data Centers. Server Visualization and powerhouses offering high-speed connectivity are seen as technological upgrades.

Data Center Checklist

However, any end-user of Data Center needs to consider some critical components, which are listed below-

  • Security

Today, Data Centers store vast volumes of critical data that are processed and distributed across used for driving valuable insights. This data varies in terms of vitality and confidentiality. Hence, security is one of the significant factors that must not be compromised at any cost. The capability of servers to encrypt the data, uplink security, etc., are some worthy aspects to consider for enhancing online security. Additionally, there also needs to be a proper hardware security recovery plan, which can be implemented in case of an unforeseen disaster or mishaps. Hence, servers and other hardware must be adequately secured against thefts and natural or human-induced disasters. Thus, the user needs to choose a Data Center provider that ensures the highest levels of security on multiple layers.

  • High-Speed Connectivity

High-Speed Connectivity is an important aspect when selecting a Data Center. Businesses usually like ‘High Speed,’ ‘High-Speed Servers,’ etc., but these are misleading. A Data Center user needs to understand that High Speed refers to the backbone network that connects Data Centers users and providers. Besides all this, the Data Center providers should also offer customized Solutions like routers, switches, load balancers, and their blueprints. A professional Data Center provider will go beyond providing traditional services and ensuring the guaranteed uptime.

  • Reliability

Reliability is an important consideration when evaluating a Data Center provider. It becomes essentially important to have robust backup plans and RAID offerings. The power systems must offer high backup, and the power equipment is well-versed in tackling emergency situations. As an end-user, he must carry out extensive research and review checks about the Data Center provider and the service quality level that they offer. Discussing the requirements with a Data Center provider like ESDS can make the decision process faster and efficient. Data Center users must have a clear idea about their provider’s Disaster Recovery mechanism and the guarantee levels for securing the critical data.

  • Redundancy

Today, most of the leading Data Center providers have their Data Centers located at multiple locations and different seismic zones. These redundant Data Centers help in the faster recovery of data in any unforeseen disaster event. The data present at these redundant Data Centers are secured by multiple level cyber and physical security. A reliable Data Center Hosting provider will have its different Data Centers in different seismic zones to avoid losses due to natural disasters.

Wrapping Up

The points mentioned in the above section are some critical aspects when looking for a Data Center provider. Users must carry out in-depth research and carefully evaluate Data Center providers on these parameters. Providers offering their own Data Center are keen to offer their infrastructure with the utmost security and end-to-end management. Some Data Center providers also offer a wide array of web hosting services if a user wishes to use them.

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May 12, 2021
0 Data Centers

HYPERSCALE DATA CENTERS: INDIA’S DATA CENTER EXPANSION

There will be an expansion of data centers in India as digital users are growing unprecedentedly.

Indian consumers are among the significant users of social media services. Facebook has a practically equivalent number of users in India if compared to the US. Data localization will require storing all user-related information that incorporates the need for Facebook and other social media platforms to store its data and soaring data center demand in India.

The requirement for data center infrastructures in India is developing dramatically, as the scale of cloud adoption as well as data utilization and generation of half a billion digital users in India, is growing unprecedented.

Increasingly more Indian companies are hoping to evolve into digital-first businesses, with a characteristic movement towards increased cloud-driven advancements in all cases.

The spread of COVID-19 has halted different data center development projects in India. Experts at Arizton expect that the pandemic will respectably affect forthcoming projects expected to be opened in Q4 2020 and Q1 2021. In any case, the spread of Covid-19 has fundamentally led to the growth of data traffic from March 2020.

To give all-time availability services, administrators are taking careful steps for their on-location workers. Hence, the COVID-19 effect on data center operations is expected to be low in India.

According to a new report (covered by Fortune India), jointly penned by real estate services company Anarock, and Mace, a London-based consultancy and construction company, stated that India will see an expansion of at least 28 enormous hyper-scale data centers in the coming three years.

The Anarock-Mace report contends that these hyperscale data centers will length over 16+ million sq. ft. with at least 1,400+ MW of IT power limit. This is almost “0.6 million sq. ft. What’s more, 50 MW per facility on an average per hyperscale data centre. It further mentions that India will see a significant development in the data center industry, driven by expanded data consumption and policy incentives.

According to another study, local vendors will rule the colocation market; nonetheless, the presence of worldwide sellers is expanding by means of inorganic techniques. Further, as the investment in technologies such as AI, big data, IoT increases, there will be a surge in demand for application-specific infrastructure solutions in India.

Source

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Mar 23, 2021
0 Technology

Making Data Center Smart: How Artificial Intelligence Helps?

artificial intelligence

As data centers become an enabler to a nation’s economy, employing artificial intelligence can yield higher benefits

Artificial Intelligence (AI) plays a pivotal role in capturing, processing, and analyzing data at a much faster rate than ever, today! It is also becoming more efficient and useful to incorporate data elements and managing data centers.

With data becoming a pre-requisite to sustain almost every business operation for insight and business results, data centers are on the crux of this digital transformation. These physical facilities that house the computers and equipment power the information needs of the modern economy. Data centers provide seamless data backup and recovery facilities while supporting cloud storage applications and transactions. Apart from boosting the economy, the data center ecosystem attracts many international tech companies for the nation. Moreover, the presence of data centers ensures an excellent investment climate and employment opportunities for the local community.

Despite their key role in bringing a digital revolution, they are not without problems. According to Gartner analyst Dave Cappuccio, 80% of enterprises will shut down their traditional data centers by 2025. The figures are fitting considering the host of problems faced by traditional data centers like lack of readiness to upgrade, infrastructure challenges, environmental issues, and more. And the remedy for this is leveraging artificial intelligence to enhance the data center functions and infrastructure.

As per a Forbes Insights report, in early 2020, artificial intelligence is poised to have a tremendous impact on data center management, productivity, and infrastructure. Meanwhile, its technologies continue to offer data centers potential solutions to improve operations over the long term. In return data centers enabled by accelerated computing capabilities of AI, would be able to process AI workloads more efficiently.

Data centers consume a lot of energy, so training an artificial intelligence network to improve power usage effectiveness (PUE) is a key goal. PUE is an essential metric to measure data center efficiency. In 2014 by deploying Deepmind AI in one of its facilities, Google was able to consistently achieve a 40% reduction in the amount of energy used for cooling, which equated to a 15% reduction in overall PUE overhead after accounting for electrical losses and other non-cooling inefficiencies. It also produced the lowest PUE the site had ever seen. Deepmind analyzes over 100 different variables within the data center to improve efficiency and reduce power consumption.

Data centers are also susceptible to various cyber threats. Cybercriminals are always finding new ways to obtain data from data centers or launch their next data breach attack. By learning normal network behavior and detecting cyber threats based on deviation from that behavior, artificial intelligence proves to be resourceful again!  Artificial algorithms can complement current Security Incidents and Event Management (SIEM) systems, by analyzing incidents and inputs from multiple systems, and devising an appropriate incident response system.

In a data center, IT devices are often deployed or removed from shelves that brings a lot of fragmented resources, like U space, which cannot be monitored or managed, and are easy to get wasted. By using intelligent hardware and IoT sensors, artificial intelligence allows effective data center infrastructure management that keeps a close eye on the data center and reduces repetitive work through automation. Here, data center managers can automate activities like temperature management, equipment status monitoring, floor security, fire hazards mitigation, ventilation, and cooling systems management. Coupled with predictive analytics, automation also helps in predictive maintenance at data centers.

Further, this AI-based predictive analysis can help data centers distribute workloads across the many servers in the firm. As a result, it will be easy to predict and manage data center loads more efficiently. It will also help in optimizing server storage systems, finding possible fault points in the system, improve processing times, and reducing risk factors much faster.

Recently, MIT researchers had developed an AI system that automatically learns how to schedule data-processing operations across thousands of servers. This system was observed to be about 20 to 30% faster, and twice as fast during high-traffic times in completing key data center tasks. The researchers assert that this artificial intelligence system could enable data centers to handle the same workload at higher speeds, using fewer resources.

Additionally, through deep learning (DL) applications, AI can predict failures and outages ahead of time. E.g.  HPE artificial intelligence predictive engine helps in identifying and resolving bottlenecks in the data center.  A survey of 200 companies highlighted that downtime results in losses surpassing US$26.5 billion, with the cost per minute of a network outage reaching approximately US$7,900. By monitoring server performance, network congestions, and disk utilization, AI can detect and predict data outages. Besides, it can implement mitigation strategies to help the data center recover from the data outage – thus adding to customer satisfaction and minimal losses during such outages.

Source

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Feb 9, 2021
2 Data Centers

Datacenter Providers in India

Top Datacenter

WHAT IS A DATA CENTER?

Modern Data Centers are different than they were just a short time ago. Datacenter architecture has moved from traditional on-premises physical servers to virtual networks that help applications and workloads across pools of physical foundation and into a multi-Cloud condition.

In this time, information exists and is connected across different Data Centers, the edge, and public and private Clouds. The Data Center should have the option to communicate across these multiple sites, both on-premises and in the Cloud. Indeed, even the public Cloud is a collection of the Data Center. At the point when applications are hosted in the Cloud, they are using the Data Center from the Cloud supplier.

What are the core components of a Data Center?

Datacentre design incorporates routers, switches, firewalls, storage systems, servers, and application delivery controllers. Because these segments store and manage business-critical data and applications, Data Center security is critical in Data Center design. Together, they provide

core components of a Data Center

Network Infrastructure

This connects servers (physical and virtualized), Data Center services, storage, and external connectivity to end-user locations.

Storage Infrastructure

Data is the fuel of the advanced Data Center. Capacity systems are used to hold this valuable commodity.

Computing resources

Applications are the engines of Data Centers. These servers give the processing memory, local storage, and organization network that drive applications.

As per the latest forecast by a source, the end-user spending on Datacenter architecture is expected to reach $200 Billion in 2021, rising 6% over 2020.

Source

Indian population is quickly going computerized. The tremendous number of internet users using active mobile data via connected devices is expected to grow drastically in the coming years. Proceeded with web entrance is furthermore expected with the Government of India supporting public investment in large scale digitalization with its ‘Digital India’ scheme and with the progress of media communication providers to high-speed 4G LTE and the soon to come 5G wireless technologies. This presents an immense demand for Data Center architecture.

Flourishing Cloud adoption is further driving the development in the Indian Data Center market.  Reports recommend that Data Center markets can pull in investments of the order of $4.9 billion in the following five years. Right now, the country has around 375 MW installed power capacity for Data Centers, and according to projections, this may develop multiple times by 2025.

Things being what they are, let’s know the 6 Data Centers of India who are the key players benefiting from the demand?

1. Netmagic (NTT Company)

Netmagic, an entirely claimed subsidiary of NTT Communications, is a main managed hosting and multi-Cloud hybrid IT solution provider serving more than 2500 enterprises internationally. Netmagic, headquartered in Mumbai, likewise gives Remote Infrastructure Management (RIM) administrations to different enterprise clients around the world including NTT Communication’s clients across the Americas, Europe, and Asia-Pacific district.

Netmagic

Netmagic was the first in India for quite a while to dispatch administrations including distributed computing, overseen security, Disaster Recovery-as-a-Service (DRaaS), and Software-Defined Storage. As a worldwide ICT supplier, they employ more than 40,000 individuals in a diverse and dynamic working environment that spans 57 nations, trading in 73 countries, and delivering services in more than 200 countries.

2. SIFY TECHNOLOGIES

Among Fortune 500 India Company, Sify Technologies is India’s most comprehensive ICT (Information and Communication Technologies) service and solution provider. Sify offers a wide range of solutions and products across multiple verticals taking advantage of their unassailable trinity of Data Centers, Networks, and Security. 1600 cities in India have been benefited from the seamless services of Sify. Spreading its business across the globe they have been conducting business internationally in North America, the United Kingdom, and Singapore. Having a telecom network currently connects 45 Data Centers across India and 6 concurrently maintainable Data Centers across cities of Delhi, Mumbai, Chennai, and Bengaluru.

SIFY TECHNOLOGIES

3. ESDS

ESDS acts as a catalyst for digital transformation in the modern edge result based economy by empowering organizations to embrace advanced innovations. Found in 2005, ESDS currently has its footprints in 19 nations across APAC, Europe, Middle East, the Americas, and Africa. ESDS expertise in Managed Data Center services, Cloud Hosting, and Disaster recovery Hosting backed with exuberant technical support. More than 750 organizations have been benefited with 100% exuberant customer support to build the lifetime customer relationship.

ESDS

4. TATA COMMUNICATIONS

The company empowers digital transformation globally including 300 of the Fortune 500. Tata Communications uses its advanced solutions abilities and domain expertise across its global network for conveying managed solutions to global organizations and communications service providers. Its worldwide organization incorporates a high level and largest submarine cable network and a Tier-1 IP network with connectivity to over 200 countries and territories. Tata Communications’ scope in the developing business sectors includes leadership in Indian enterprise data services and global voice communications.

TATA COMMUNICATIONS

5. Webwerks

Web Werks Data Centers, situated in 3 countries with more than six geographically scattered Data Centers, have been among the pioneers in India for recent many years. They offer reliable hosting services on dedicated servers, Cloud, Co-location, virtualization, and disaster recovery alongside 24×7 support and a 99.995% uptime guarantee.  Web Werks Data Centers are Carbon Neutral contributing towards Global Go-Green ideas. It is likewise an SAP-certified provider of infrastructure, hosting, and Cloud operations services.

Webwerks

Their customer list incorporates Microsoft, Google, Godrej, Canon, TATA, Netflix, Facebook, Akamai, and more. They also have Government area clients like Mumbai Metro Rail Corporation Limited, Maharashtra Knowledge Corporation, Nabard, Maharashtra Pollution Control Board, SIDBI and more.

6. NxtGen

NxtGen empowers its clients to assemble their digital business without contributing and managing complex IT infrastructure, by leveraging its hyper-converged infrastructure. Settled in Singapore, NxtGen, is an arising pioneer giving completely managed datacenter and Cloud services across India and Singapore. NxtGen sends and offers IT framework services from both or a combination of on-premise resources and its own facilities – Infinite DatacenterTM, engaging its clients to adopt the latest hybrid computing model.

NxtGen

*The above mentioned Datacenter are not placed according to their ranking or product range.*

Conclusion

As the Datacenter architecture moves from traditional to physical on-premises, the evolution of Datacenter will help organizations position them in the market and grow according to the transformation. We hope the above mentioned information about the Top Data Center in India is helpful to you.

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Jan 19, 2021
0 Data Centers

How does a Data Center work?

What is a Data Center?

A certain premise where an entire organization’s IT operations and equipment is centralized and, where it stores, analyzes, and distributes large amounts of data is known as a Data Center (DC). Earlier, the data processing needs were not too high but nowadays those needs have grown exponentially. Data centers are now essential for daily operations and are important for business continuity.

They are reliable to store enormous amounts because of their avant-garde security levels that keep the organization’s data safe at all times. The DC site, which is also known as a Server Farm, is connected to a communication network so that information can be accessed easily and remotely. There are thousands of very small powerful servers running in a data center which can be harbored in a room, a floor, or an entire building.

Important components of a Data Center

Power

Power is unarguably the most important factor in a data center. Within the data center, the Colocation equipment and web hosting servers run on a dedicated power source. Every data center needs power backups to make sure their servers are always up and overall service uptime is received.

Cooling

Cooling is just as important as a power in a data center. The colocation equipment and web hosting servers need proper cooling so that they don’t heat up and continue to function smoothly. A data center should be designed in such a way where there is proper ventilation and the systems are kept cool at all times.

Network Operations Center

Network Operation Center (NOC) is a room for staff or dedicated personnel appointed to monitor, administrate, and maintain the computing resources in a data center. A NOC is able to provide all the information on the data center and gives updates on each and every activity. The person responsible in a NOC is able to see visualizations of the network which are being monitored and can be managed.

Safety Measures

You need to have security protocols in place in order to have a secure data center. You need to first figure out the vulnerabilities in your DC premises. Multi-factor ID authentication, surveillance throughout the facility, metal detectors, and biometric systems are some of the steps which can be taken to have top-level security.

Physical Security

Organizations do employ security guards to protect their data centers 24/7. These guards protect the inside and outside of the data center for enhanced security. Mantraps are generally used for access control. On-site security guards are an essential part of a data center. Some organizations allow these professional guards to carry firearms for higher security.

Redundancy & Reliability

High availability in a data center refers to the components which are continuously working. Systems are maintained from time to time to ensure smooth operations in the future. You can create a failover where you create a server and switch responsibilities to a remote server to have higher levels of redundancy.

Redundant Systems eliminate the threat of a single point of failure in the IT infrastructure. Backup Systems include an uninterruptible power supply (UPS) and generators. A generator can be programmed to start automatically during power outages. As long as the generators are fueled up, they will continue to run in an outage. UPS systems should also have redundancy built in them so that a failing module won’t affect the entire capacity of the system.

Maintenance of a Data Center

Regular maintenance of the data center ensures optimum reliability by taking precautionary steps to reduce downtime and avoidable failures. Let’s take a look at these 3 steps which will help you maintain your data center in the most effective way:

Safety First

There are numerous problems in a data center that can affect the life and health of the technicians working in it. Technicians should make sure their safety and health are not compromised while working on maintenance tasks and they should be trained before working in such scenarios.

Power Maintenance

Performing maintenance at regular intervals on UPS and batteries reduces the chances of failure whenever there is a power outage. Preventive maintenance will decrease the chances of failures and reduce the amount of energy consumed.

Get a Computerized Maintenance Management Systems (CMMS)

CMMS is the best way to track, measure, and improve your maintenance schedule. This software lets the facility manager track the status of maintenance work for their assets and costs associated with the work in the system. This software will help drive down the cost of maintenance and will increase productivity from within.

Conclusion

This blog covers only the basic information which will give you a rough idea about what exactly is a data center and what are the important components in it. To build an efficient data center it is essential to realize your requirements which will support your needs in the future.

Source: Insight success

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Jan 19, 2021
0 Data Centers

Future of Data Center, Is Bright!

In the current IT scenario, the world has been experiencing an immense change that is bringing new technologies together for a better tomorrow. The past several years have only taught us to approach complex IT needs by making use of technologies that cater to these problems. Nowadays we have a huge dependency on the internet to do any kind of activity which connects us to whoever we want from any location at any point in time.

We do not realize that our life revolves around data centers because they distribute and store our data. Banks, enterprises, hospitals, telecommunications, and transportation are some of the areas which make use of data centers to store their critical data. These data centers are responsible for storing and distributing the humongous amounts of data that are being created every day.

Future of Data Center, Is Bright!
Young man engineer making program analyses

Services that are provided by a data center are changing according to the needs of users and they are evolving to fit the needs of the industry since the last decade. Datacenter services can be the components of a data center which can be used for processing, distributing, and storing data in various ways with speed and security. These services also include new hardware components and softwares which can be implemented for specific tasks. Data centers are built by keeping in my mind things like managers and owners, internal and external circumstances, storage needs, security, and much more.

In the future, there are a lot of changes which we will be able to see in data center facilities and the services they provide. Below are some of the listed services and components which are the future of data center services.

1. Fog Computing

Fog computing also is known as Fogging or Fog Networking extends cloud computing to the edge of an enterprise’s network. Electrical signals from the Internet of Things are wired to an automation controller which executes a control system program to automate the Internet of Things. There is a fine line between Fog Computing and Edge Computing and many times people get confused over what the real difference is. Fog computing has multiple layers of complexity for data conversion and its architecture is dependent on a communication chain to transfer data from physical assets to virtual entities. In this architecture, each communication link is a potential point of failure.

2. Edge Computing

In Edge Computing, the analysis of data is done where the data is created which is at the edge of the network. Here the analysis is carried out instead of sending it across data centers because it is a time-consuming process. At the edge of a network, micro data centers to process and store data so that it can be later transferred to the cloud. Edge computing lets you analyze data in real-time which improves decision making.

3. Software Defined Networking (SDN)

Software-Defined Networking is quickly becoming a key component for automation in data centers. Software-defined networking provides the best ways to manage virtualization which saves cost and offers speedy service delivery. It gives data center personnel the ability to manage each and every aspect of a data center which results in higher agility to manage and upgrade their hardware. It is too difficult to manage modern data centers by assigned personnel and thus, it is important to use an automation tool. It helps enterprises to improve their security by minimizing vulnerabilities caused by human errors.

4. Environmental-Friendly Data Centers

Green data centers aim for an eco-friendly environment. According to several studies, half of the resources in DC are used to run the infrastructure, like power, cooling, and UPS. The remaining resources are used to process the data. Data centers have started to work towards low energy consumption by reducing energy footprint. With newer cooling techniques, better efficiency, and upgraded power usage effectiveness (PUE), carbon emission is reduced which minimizes the damage to the environment. A new term emerging is Water Usage Efficiency (WUE) which focuses on the water to cool the entire data center. Some other newer technologies in the market are economizers and evaporative cooling which uses outdoor air.

Conclusion

There are many more technologies that are being developed in this field so that there is less work to be done and more results to be achieved.

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