Automation plays an increasingly important role in today’s world. It refers to the use of machines, computers, and software to perform tasks that were previously done manually by humans.
With the rapid advancements in technology, automation has become more prevalent in different industries such as manufacturing, transportation, healthcare, finance, and even in data centers.
According to the report of Allied Market Research, the global data center automation market size was valued at $4.8 billion in 2020, and is projected to reach $32.5 billion by 2030, growing at a CAGR of 21.32% from 2021 to 2030.
Major growth factors of the data center automation market size include application of data centers across various industry domains and the demand for energy efficiency and business growth.
Manual DC Operations Vs. DC Automation
Manual operations in a data center refer to the tasks that are performed manually by humans to maintain and operate the data center infrastructure. These tasks can include monitoring and managing the physical infrastructure, such as servers, networking equipment, storage systems, and power and cooling systems.
While manual operations are necessary for maintaining the data center infrastructure, they can also be time-consuming and prone to human error. As such, many data centers are moving towards automation to reduce the reliance on manual operations and improve overall efficiency and reliability.
Why Should Data Centers be Automated?
According to Geoffrey Brown, Construction Quality Lead for APAC data center projects at Google Singapore, there are a couple of different aspects to be considered why data centers should be automated.
The first one is safety – “automation helps safety and reduces some of human error which is present in all forms of automation” Automated systems can perform tasks without human intervention, reducing the likelihood of errors caused by human mistakes.”
Security should also be considered, “Automation can also improve the security of a data center by enabling faster response times to security incidents.” Automated systems can quickly identify and isolate potential security threats, and take appropriate action to prevent or mitigate damage.
Next is the efficiency – “Automation also improves efficiency especially in terms of PUE (Power Usage Effectiveness) and that’s what a lot of companies are striving for so it optimizes energy consumption.” Automated systems can monitor and adjust infrastructure settings and configurations, optimize resource utilization, and troubleshoot issues in real-time.
And lastly, the scalability – Automation can make it easier to scale a data center as demand grows. “As we start to move into the kind of hyperscale type of data center, that means it needs to get bigger and with that sort of being able to scale up you need to have the infrastructure to support that and your control systems are going to play a big part of that.”
Why is it a Critical Component of Modern DC Infrastructure?
Brown stated that automation has become a critical component of modern data center infrastructure.
“Without some form of automation, it’s extremely difficult to scale any kind of efficiency in terms of the cooling systems or HVAC systems, which are going to use tremendous sources of energy used within a data center, and you just can’t do that sort of calculation in real time with just human operators.”
As data centers continue to grow in size and complexity, it is becoming increasingly difficult for human operators to manage all of the tasks required to keep them running smoothly.
“If we keep building more data centers and they get bigger, we just don’t have the ability to operate anymore at a reasonable level without any kind of automation at all.”
According to Brown, it’s not just within the data centers, this is even exploring areas outside of data centers since all of high-tech industry nowadays is pushing towards some way of being more and more automated.