Datacenter Trends

Datacenter Trends Round-Up: HPE, One Stop Systems and More

HPE sets its sights on bringing artificial intelligence to the datacenter, while the multitenant datacenter market is poised to grow thanks to the innovations of green technology.

• By John K. Waters
• 11/30/2017

This holiday season has been surprisingly rife with news and announcements about products and trends in the datacenter space. Here are some key pieces of this ever-evolving picture that caught our attention.

HPE Brings AI to the Datacenter
Hewlett Packard Enterprise (HPE) recently unveiled what may be the industry's first artificial intelligence (AI) recommendation engine for the datacenter. HPE InfoSight, a predictive analytics platform designed to bring software-defined intelligence to the datacenter, can predict and prevent infrastructure problems before they happen, the Palo Alto, Calif.-based enterprise technology claimed in a statement. This capability will "pave the path toward an autonomous datacenter," the company said.

HPE Insight leverages advanced machine learning and now "preemptively advises IT how to avoid issues, improve performance, and optimize available resources."

"The recommendations are based on advanced machine learning that leverages almost a decade of data science expertise and rich telemetry collected from more than 10,000 HPE Nimble Storage customers," the company said. HPE InfoSight is designed learn continuously, making customers' systems smarter and more reliable over time. The company expects to extend machine learning across its storage and server portfolio.

HPE InfoSight with the new AI recommendation engine will be available January 2018 to all HPE Nimble Storage customers with an active support contract at no additional charge, the company said. It will be available also to the 3PAR storage system customers with an active support contract at no additional charge.

One-Stop Shop
One Stop Systems (OSS), a provider of high-performance all-flash arrays, has signed a licensing agreement with Western Digital (WD) to develop and market WD's ION flash storage accelerator software, the two companies said. The deal allows OSS to enhance the ION software, which is used for military, finance and other pure, high-speed flash storage applications. ION has a pedigree, the company said, of ultra-high performance storage for high definition video content delivery, social media platforms, high-speed data recorders, financial transactions and government training systems, among other applications.

OSS designs and manufactures ultra-dense, high-performance computing (HPC) systems for deep learning, oil and gas exploration, financial trading, media and entertainment, defense, and traditional HPC apps requiring fast and efficient data processing. OSS is known as an innovator in hyperconverged and composable infrastructure solutions, using the latest technology and design equipment to operate with the highest efficiency.

Multitenant Datacenter Growth Sparked by Green Movement
The global multitenant datacenter market is expected to grow at a CAGR of more than 11% between 2017 and 2021, according to the authors of a new market research study by Technavio.

Many organizations will seek colocation and managed services to reduce costs, but some are turning to them as part of a green strategy.

"Globally, the consumption of electricity and increasing carbon emissions by datacenters has created awareness regarding green datacenter facilities among enterprises," the report's authors explain. "These facilities assist in the operation of energy efficient power, IT and cooling infrastructure with low carbon footprint and electricity consumption. The use of renewable energy sources, free cooling, consolidation, and waste recycling are some of the methodologies implemented in green datacenters."

AWS, Microsoft, Google and Facebook operate green datacenter facilities worldwide.

Marvell Buys Cavium
Chipmaker Marvell Technology announced that it will acquire rival chipmaker Cavium, Inc. in a deal that combines Marvell's portfolio of HDD and SSD storage controllers, networking solutions, and high-performance wireless connectivity products with Cavium's family of multi-core processing, networking communications, storage connectivity and security solutions.

Bermuda-based Marvell makes semiconductors for data-storage devices; California-based Cavium produces communications and networking chips. The deal better positions Marvell to compete with bigger rivals, the companies said in a statement, including Intel and Broadcom.

The combined product portfolio will give Marvell the muscle to deliver comprehensive end-to-end solutions across the cloud datacenter, enterprise and service provider markets, the company said.

The companies also expect the acquisition to spark "an R&D innovation engine to accelerate product development, positioning the company to meet today's massive and growing demand for data storage, heterogeneous computing, and high-speed connectivity.

Datacenter Cooling Market Heating Up
Historically, one of the biggest costs associated with maintaining a datacenter is the energy needed to keep the servers cool. Despite ongoing efforts by datacenter managers to reduce their PUE (power usage effectiveness), the ratio of power consumed by the hardware to power consumed to cool it -- it appears the market for datacenter cooling equipment is poised for some explosive growth.

Researchers at Global Market Insights concluded in a recently published "Industry Trends" report that the growth in the number of datacenters worldwide will whip the cooling equipment market into a veritable blizzard over the next few years. "The demand for [datacenter] infrastructure is increasing from government agencies and large enterprises due to the adoption of advanced technologies, such as big data analytics and cloud for business operational needs," the report's authors observed.

The IT and telecom end-use vertical dominated the market for datacenter cooling equipment in 2016, the researchers found, due largely to the rising digitalization and penetration of technologies such as big data and the cloud. "These technologies pose an increasing demand for data storage and availability," they wrote. "Enterprises are demanding better data storage, connectivity and IT facilities to cater the demands efficiently.

Another factor: The proliferation of smart devices and consumer demand to safeguard their "information property" and financial assets. The top vendors in this space are focusing on new product developments and acquisitions to keep their top spots, the researchers found. Which means they are "catering to different needs of the customers based on the infrastructure designs in various end-use verticals."

Cool.