IOT: A BIG THREAT FOR STORAGE IN THE DATA CENTER

We spoke to Sanjay Motwani, Regional Director Asia Pacific, Raritan APAC, to understand how IoT devices are crafting pressure on storage within the data center and how technology can be used help alleviate these issues

- Nijhum Rudra

IoT is going to generate huge amount of data, and bring in new challenges related to model, security, management, and more than that it will transform the data center. Reports from various incumbents in the IoT space as well as predictors of future in the technology arena peg the number of connected devices at a wide range. One such prediction states 14 billion connected devices by 2022. Texas Instruments pegs the number at 50 billion and Gartner at 26 billion by 2020.

How IoT is Creating Pressure on Storage within the Data Center

With increasing adaptation of IoT within a data center, more and more devices are connected and IT enabled. “Now that almost every single device or application is connected, it is leading to more storage capacity at the backend – it is not just about connectivity, but it has also got to do with understanding the behavioral pattern of the device or the application,” said Motwani.

IoT implementation will add additional layer of equipment that needs to be managed within a data center. It will generate large quantities of data that need to be processed and analyzed in real time for which servers will be needed with different bandwidth and speed. The enormous number of connected devices coupled with the sheer volume, velocity and structure of IoT data will call for increasing storage space in a data center.

“Compared to earlier times, when only organizations had storage for their office data, now the world is changing and besides business applications, we are also talking about everyone’s behavioral pattern and the devices which they use,” said Motwani. “Thus theoretically speaking, we are sitting at 7 billion populations globally and if we look 10 years down the line from now, 3 billion people will be connected on internet with every house of their own IoT,” added Motwani. With this database of 3 billion people and their respective devices, there is going to be an exponential growth of storage and with IoT coming into play storage is moving away from the business to consumer at the home segment.

What Needs to be Done

“It is imperative that the new technologies which are coming up should ensure the optimum usage of resources as we are going to expect an exponential growth in the need for storage which in turn means more servers and datacenters,” exclaims Motwani. Managing the data center, IT infrastructure and better dissemination of information are the needs of the hour with increasing volume of available data. While storing data, attention must be paid on the proper usage of bandwidth to optimize every aspect of the infrastructure otherwise the cost will rise exponentially. Bringing down the opex with optimization of IT infrastructure is of highest priority.

However, before making any purchase order or asking for quotes for short listing the vendor, an alarm is set to keep a track on the capacity being used so that the purchase process can be placed at 70% utilization. Placing pre-purchase order also gives time for delivery and the new system can be integrated meanwhile. This monitoring also helps to understand the average consumption of storage.

A Faster Method to Utilize Storage

Of all, storage is relatively easily measurable. The utilization of storage can be measured and can be figured out through an alarm indicator and track.  Issue lies with aspects like Power which no one can track as to how much power is spared in their system without an analysis of power consumption pattern. For instance, if one has provision for 1000 KVA and is not aware of how much is being utilized, it is assumed that the entire power is being utilized by all the devices. “By measuring power consumption, we will understand that the maximum power usage will be around 600 KVA out of 1000 KVA of which 400 KVA is free. This persuades organizations to deploy tools to indicate the spare power in the rack so that more devices can be added to that particular rack,” said Motwani. Assessment of tools plays a crucial role here. Only those tools which can track the unused power along with free space in a data center per rack basis and monitors every asset of data center at granular level should be installed.

“The other way to utilize capacity includes increasing the rack density by bringing three phase power to the rack. With this the capacity of the rack can be doubled wherein more equipment can be added without incurring any extra cost on energy and real estate,” concluded Motwani