Recent breakthroughs in technology have developed the possibilities for the gathering, processing, storing, and analysis of data. Businesses now have flexibility in deciding the most efficient data storage solutions, whether this is the Cloud, within a traditional data centre, or on the network edge.
For the first time, the nature of an application is a deciding factor in the best way to run it. The last several months have seen Micro Data Centres emerge as the technology solution of choice for the management of growing computing needs across edge environments.
In some cases, edge computing is helping organisations reduce the need for transmitting data back and forth across networks. This has the benefit of reducing bandwidth costs and providing an alternative in situations where other data storage solutions may not be ideal, such as when dealing with issues involving latency or unstable network connections. This allows for fewer disruptions to the applications, and a higher degree of business continuity.
Evaluating Micro Data Centres
The Micro Data Centre offers flexibility in its use across a wide variety of applications. Individual Micro Data Centre solutions can provide simple fixes to core business challenges. These solutions include quick and easily repeatable deployments, resilience, and a need for local computing without reliance on local IT support.
When IT professionals responsible for edge computing installations evaluate Micro Data Centre choices, it’s important to look for offerings that are pre-configured, pre-tested, and pre-integrated. Other important factors include hyperconverged computing, operations software, environmental monitoring, power distribution, and power protection. There is also the practical issue of space considerations at deployment sites. Many Micro Data Centre options require less space for the system, and the time to configure them is minimal. As many remote locations may not have IT staff onsite, it may be necessary to offer simpler plug and play Micro Data Centre solutions; this would be a solution that only requires local sites to provide a power and communications connection to turn the system on, and begin running applications and processing data.
The vendor community has united to collectively respond to these new business requirements, addressing issues such as high data transmission costs and latency-free performance. One of the outcomes of this collaboration is the ‘Data Centre in a Box’, which was created through the joint efforts of Scale Computing and APC by Schneider Electric. This solution allows businesses a single pane management approach, which allows multiple business sites to operate across the globe consistently, with limited downtime.
Learn more about how Micro Data Centres can help deliver certainty in a connected world to businesses, and how Micro Data Centres and Data Centre in a Box solutions can increase reliability and address the needs of the Internet of Things (IoT) edge computing requirements.