Data centres are in huge demand due to recent advancements in technology, especially artificial intelligence and computing developments.
According to McKinsey & Company, the global demand for data centre capacity is expected to increase at a rate of 19–22% annually from 2023 to 2030, reaching 171–219 gigawatts (GW).
Data centres however have a complex IT environment that need significant management and maintenance.
This is where data centre automation comes in.
This article tells you everything you need to know about data centre automation, what it is, why is it important and its key features.
What is Data Centre Automation?
Data centre automation is the strategic use of software that automates routine tasks within a data centre. This involves employing tools and techniques to handle a variety of tasks and manage a data centre’s infrastructure.
These could include server provisioning, network configuration, workload management, security management, and monitoring. Since there are a multitude of tasks and components in IT processes within data centre infrastructures that need managing, automating tasks of varying complexity can simplify data centre management for companies.
Also Read: How AI Growth is Impacting Data Centre Demand
Why is Data Centre Automation important?
Automating data centre operations in both its virtual and physical environments eases the pressure from manual work, reducing human error while boosting overall productivity. It also pavees the opportunity for faster deployment of new services.
Additionally, automation can help spot opportunities for resource optimisation that have been untapped by organisations. This would equip organisations with the scope to respond instantaneously to changing industrial trends and requirements. Additionally, it helps maintain compliance with security standards and industry best practices.
Key Features
1. Computing
Data centre automation enables automating tasks related to computing such as server provisioning, configuration, and management. More specifically, it would automatically deploy new servers, applying software updates, and scaling resources to meet changing demands.
This helps organisations to boost productivity at a faster pace while still maintaining the quality. Such automation of softwares constantly exanines application demand and resource supply levels.
According to IBM, it generates automatable actions that reduce the potential for resource congestion, reduce the impact of latency, and safely use all hardware without putting performance at risk.
2. Rightsizing
Rightsizing involves leveraging resources in a way that meets the workload demands. Automation will spot such untapped resource optimisation opportunities for applications and virtual machines.
This process will then evaluate resource optimisation patterns and automatically adjust the levels or the amount needed. In this case, this allocation would be pertinent to CPU memory, and storage to ensure neither are overprovisioned nor underutilised.
Overall, rightsizing can help data centres improve efficiency, reduce costs, and enhance performance.
3. Storage Placement
Data centre automation software is usually equipped with the capability to interpret specific storage demands for each workload. This can then help organisations leverage storage in a way that moves data around within the virtual environment without impacting performance or requiring major changes to the storage hardware. This leads to more efficient storage use and better overall system performance.
4. Capacity Management
Data centre automation involves proactive capacity management which helps predict future resource needs based on historical usage patterns and current trends. By analyzing data on factors like workload growth, seasonal variations, and application performance, these tools can identify potential capacity bottlenecks and recommend proactive measures to address them.
This helps prevent performance degradation, system failures, and unplanned downtime, ensuring that the data centre can handle future demands effectively.
According to IBM, data centre automation software uses an accurate view of the real-time environment to simulate changes you define, such as how much physical infrastructure is needed to support growth or migrate workloads. With continuous data centre automation and optimization in place, you can run any simulation your team can dream up.
Also Read: The Top 10 Data Centre Infrastructure Management Solutions for 2020
