Fujitsu Limited, a Japanese multinational ICT equipment and services corporation, has announced plans to conduct a number of field trials at its Yokohama Data Center with Fujitsu Research Institute Limited. These field trials will make use of private 5G network technology for equipment inspection in order to advance the digital transformation of data centers, increase operational resilience, and automate processes.
As one of its “Development Demonstrations Aimed at Achieving Challenge-Solving Local 5G in Fiscal 2022,” Japan’s Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications chose this verification trial, which will run from December 1 through March 17, 2023.
In the trial, a robot with a 4K camera will be used to record video of servers and other equipment in the data center. A system will be established to analyze local conditions with AI in order to identify any anomalies at an early stage. This data will be transmitted locally by private 5G.
By fully utilizing the high-speed transmission capabilities of private 5G technology, Fujitsu hopes to develop a system that can enable the monitoring of conditions on the ground and recovery operations even from a faraway position in the case of a disaster or emergency.
Data centers that store and analyze huge amounts of data are positioned as part of the basic infrastructure that supports the digital society of the twenty-first century as the digitization of society advances and the amount of data distributed rapidly rises.
In order to lessen the danger posed by catastrophes and other vulnerabilities brought on by the centralization of data centers, the Japanese government’s goal for a “Digital Garden City Nation” calls for the creation of regional data center facilities. Future predictions indicate that the number of regional data centers will rise quickly as their significance continues to rise.
High quality maintenance, inspection, and quick recovery in the case of an incident are essential for stable data center operations. However, the decline in the working population and the difficulty in finding talent, which is particularly acute in rural areas, continue to be challenges in many areas of Japan. Thus, reduced workload and maintaining and enhancing inspection quality with a small staff are pressing problems for data center operators.
