W.Media’s 2022 Cloud & Datacenter Awards recognized the leaders in Hyperscale Innovation
(Automation) and Carbon Reduction in the Southeast Asia region.
DCI Indonesia won both the categories in 2022. Marco Cioffi, Deputy President Director, DCI Indonesia commented:
“Data center operations are about business process consistency, as we cannot afford mistakes such as human error impacting our operations. With that being said, automation shall be tailored and embedded to the business process, as a tool to ensure adherence to the process. Winning this award is not just an accomplishment, but a challenge for us to continue pushing ourselves to be the best. Let this serve as motivation for the team to continue striving for excellence in all that
we do. We are grateful for the recognition from W. Media and will use it as fuel to keep inspiring and motivating ourselves and our colleagues to reach even greater heights.”
Increasingly, data centers have become more complex and at the same time it is critical to most
businesses. So, finding a way to enable more agile and efficient operations should be on every
company’s to-do list.
It is here that automation is increasingly being sought over in data centers. Data center
automation allows for the routine day to day activities of a facility to be completely managed and
executed without humans. These tasks include scheduling, monitoring, general maintenance, and
application delivery.
These solutions allow for the data center management team to focus more of their attention and time on mission critical tasks. This philosophy has expanded beyond typical infrastructure management to include automation solutions that integrate artificial intelligence.
In the evolution of data centers, automation is a vital step to achieving successful business
results. Across all sectors, more organizations are moving towards digital acceleration.
Several critical areas of data centers can be automated to improve efficiency.
These areas include everything from the basics of maintaining the premises in which these centers are located to some of their core data-driven tasks such as managing network traffic. It automates IT processes across computing, network, and storage layers in physical and virtual environments.
Automation helps to monitor environments for outages, assess patch management systems, track
network performance metrics, and notify experts if something goes wrong. You're also able to
automate many of the data-driven tasks associated with managing uptime, firewalls, and
endpoint data. The result is better service overall.
According to a 2021 AFCOM study, 40% of data center providers stated that they would be
deploying robotics or automation software in their facilities within the next 3 years. It’s no secret
that these technologies lead to more efficient and profitable facilities, which should be the goal
of any data center operator looking for sustained success.
Data center automation is immensely valuable because it frees up human computational time
and:
Delivers insight into server nodes and configurations
Automates routine procedures like patching, updating, and reporting
Produces and programs all data center scheduling and monitoring tasks
Enforces data center processes and controls in agreement with standards and policies
AI Usage in DC’s
AI is one of the primary tools in data center automation. The end game is creating an environment where data center personnel are well integrated with technology automation. In this way, each is making the other’s job easier, as opposed to the wide narrative regarding technology
replacing the personnel.
Take the case of technology giant Google. It has utilized AI to assist with managing the cooling
systems in their data centers, allowing for real time updates on changes in weather or workloads
so that the system can allocate resources to particular areas of the facility as needed. AI is also
commonly used to monitor emergency backup generators by examining the machinery at a
microscopic level with sound and video, sending alerts to human staff when a defect or change in
functioning is detected.
Automated power capacity planning
Leading DCIM software can automatically calculate and update an accurate power budget number for each make and model instance of a device. The number is based upon the actual measured load of that device in its environment running its applications. This approach is easier, more accurate, and less risky than the traditional method of derating the nameplate value to around 60% to 70%.
Barriers persist
The biggest challenge is technology fragmentation. Today, data center network operations
involve a wide range of disparate, vendor-proprietary management tools, each living in its own
silo.
This lack of standardization makes many operations extremely complex and time-consuming.
This also increases confusion in the marketplace. Confusion reigns supreme in terms of which
tool to use to achieve maximum benefits. Fragmentation also makes it hard to implement
consistent overarching automation.
With high energy consumption and carbon emissions in an industry that is seeing an explosion of
growth and development, new energy-efficient solutions are essential. As sustainability is in the
forefront of every conversation, carbon reduction is an important metric alongside return on
investments.
Data center operators will require error-proof and efficient ways to meet the surging demands put
forth by digital transformation initiatives. At the same time, carbon reduction is of paramount
importance.
