Issue link: https://cp.revolio.com/i/709701
4 | THE DATA CENTER JOURNAL www.datacenterjournal.com i n addition, the predicted flood of devices owing to growth in the Internet of ings (IoT) raises the challenge locally. As a result, could smaller, decentralized facilities—of- ten termed edge data centers—be the next step for the industry, especially among big-box players? e answer will depend on how a number of trends influence the market over coming years. The cloud: a cenTralizing force Growing cloud adoption means companies are increasingly outsourcing some or all of their IT infrastructure to external providers. To provide a financial incentive for this move, these providers must deliver services at a cost similar to that of in-house IT—yet still make a profit. Economies of scale enable this model, but they also lead to centralization of resources into fewer facilities. In some regards, centralization can be good: it generally allows consolidation of equipment into a smaller space that operates with greater ef- ficiency. A focused provider may also offer better security, faster upgrades and greater reliability compared with a company for which IT is a secondary task. But centralization through the cloud—or simply through market con- solidation into fewer companies running mega data centers—has a dark side as well. For example, when a network is based on just a couple central nodes, as opposed to a distributed model in which numerous nodes handle important functions, those central nodes become much juicier targets for hackers. Moreover, attacks or accidents that cause downtime have a much greater impact on service delivery and could potentially lead to a cascade of failures. Governments also tend to see a greater op- portunity for regulation and spying when the object is highly centralized rather than disbursed. For these and other reasons, some advocates of decentralization want to see networks return to the early model of the Internet, for instance, in which resources are in the hands of many smaller nodes instead of several large ones. Broader trends in IT and the Internet have also served to promote data center centralization. In particular, the domi- nance of a few large companies in their respective sectors all but necessitates a fair amount of consolidation. For example, Google has grown far beyond its search- engine roots and handles a large percent- age of Internet traffic, particularly in the U.S. Retail giant Amazon also operates a major cloud service. In the world of social media, dominant Facebook is attempting to expand beyond just interactions among its (claimed) billion-plus user base to cover news and more. Today, businesses seem quicker to mention Facebook than their own websites. For many users, social media is the Internet. Despite the economic incentives and other factors driving centralization, however, a number of trends may push the industry back in the direction of decentralization. decenTralizaTion: Bucking or Backing The Trend? With network resources becoming almost a de facto utility, the comparison with power distribution, for instance, may be apt. Power generation has become highly centralized, but recent years have seen a slight move toward decentralization through local solar and wind infrastruc- ture. Nevertheless, owing to their intermit- tence, such energy sources cannot yet replace the steady supply that conventional sources provide. In other words, decen- tralization of power is currently a minor trend. A similar dynamic may be afoot in the data center industry. Computer networking has oscillated between cen- tralization and decentralization depending on the demands and technologies of the time (e.g., mainframes versus servers, and campus networks versus the Internet). e current trend toward centralization is facing some pushback as businesses and consumers demand more services, more bandwidth and lower latency. Meeting these requirements from just a few (oen remote) data centers is increasingly dif- ficult. As a result, interest is growing in so-called edge data centers, which reside closer to consumers than larger hub facili- ties, enabling faster service delivery. One of the driving forces behind this interest is the IoT, which according to some predic- tions will over the next few years add many billions of connected devices serving a variety of purposes. MoBile and ioT driving decenTralizaTion Proliferation of mobile devices is one factor driving the growing demand for compute and storage resources, but the IoT is set to compound that situation. In some cases, however, data may hold only local value—for example, "smart" infrastructure in buildings or on roads intended to serve occupants and drivers. e data produced by this infrastructure probably has little immediate value beyond its locality, so transmitting it to a distant data center for processing makes no sense if a local facility is available. Analysis of data from multiple locations may require transmission of the data to a more remote location, but the day-to-day operations can take place at the facility closest to the clients it serves. A central hub may still manage smaller edge data centers, but it need not carry the entire processing and storage load. e question, however, is whether this sensible idea of local processing and storage for local data offers enough benefits to overcome the advantages and economies of scale that centralization of- fers. Operation of many small data centers in different locations means, for one thing, more personnel to attend to these facilities. Here, however, automation and remote management can be a boon, providing at least some degree of freedom for an opera- tor to deploy a data center in a particular locality without necessarily hiring a host of employees to manage and monitor it. oTher BenefiTs of decenTralizaTion Beyond the technical benefits, decentralized data centers can be useful in dealing with governments and regulatory compliance. Multinational companies may be required to maintain data for a particu- lar citizenry within the bounds of its home country. In such cases, some decentraliza-