Network efficiency rated as top priority for optimising data centres

New research indicates that key IT and cloud professionals rate network efficiency as their top priority for optimising data centre performance. Conducted by analyst firm Futuriom, the report also found that respondents displayed a high interest in software-defined virtualisation as well as network optimisation.

Prioritising data management

TechTarget's annual IT Priorities survey indicates that IT professionals are prioritising investment in data management. This year, companies are investing more time and resources in managing, storing, and leveraging the power of their data.

According to analyst firm Statista, data centre storage capacity currently stands at approximately 1,450 exabytes. By 2021, however, this could rise to an incredible 2,300 exabytes, or 2.3 zettabytes.

“The data centre is being reinvented, and it's a real challenge to build a cloud infrastructure that can scale to support demanding applications that can embrace big data, analytics, self-driving cars, and artificial intelligence,” Scott Raynovich, Chief Analyst at Futuriom said. As a result, enterprises are now focusing on optimising network efficiency.

Top data centre priorities

"Untold Secrets of the Efficient Data Centre" spanned medium to large enterprises across the UK, USA, and China. “If you want to cut through hype and rumour to find out what is really happening, you ask the people at the coal face” said Kevin Deierling, VP of Marketing at Mellanox Technologies, who sponsored the study.

Futuriom screened over 200 director level or higher data centre professionals by country and company size. Overall, there was a high interest in SmartNICs and just 10% of the respondents were unfamiliar with them.

"Their applications included improving the efficiency of VMs and/or containers (56%), virtualising and sharing flash storage more efficiently (55%)," Deierling stated. He highlighted that isolating and stopping security threats (47%), accelerating hyperconverged infrastructure (50%), and enabling SDN (54%) were also applications.

Why network optimisation?

Only 37% of IT professionals are currently using edge computing, according to a report from technology consultants SADA Systems. The survey found that 67% of respondents are implementing the IoT, and 60% are employing AI.

However, there is a growing demand for edge computing and domain-specific processors. As a result, the Futuriom report indicates that enterprises are now beginning to focus on solutions that optimise network efficiency.

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