FEATURE: FEATURE: 2024 PREDICTIONS "A growing number of data centres are full, and don't have the space or power available to deploy new platforms. To optimise the sustainability of existing data centre footprints, we'll see operators looking to switch to new, more power efficient technology, with smaller space and cooling requirements. This is in essence extending the life of the data centre - an essential factor when considering the need for new technologies in the wake of the rise of AI."- Fred Lherault, Pure Storage capacity for those 10 watts - which recent advances have helped deliver. Also, data centre engineers are thinking about how to use the HDD in a more power-optimised way, possibly through idle or power-down modes." More sustainable hardware such as highcapacity HDDs can help organisations design and operate a data centre with a lower environmental impact, argues Uwe Kemmer of WD. "The new generation of highest capacity drives that utilise shingled magnetic recording (SMR) are a significant step forward in meeting data centre customers' sustainability targets. Another benefit of using higher capacity drives is that data centre customers can install a smaller quantity of low power, higher-capacity HDDs rather than a higher quantity of smaller-capacity HDDs to store the same amount of data, which helps them reduce power and cooling costs." "AI and its downstream impact on data centre densities and power demands have become the dominant storylines in our industry," adds Vertiv's Giordano Albertazzi. "Finding ways to help customers both support the demand for AI and reduce energy consumption and greenhouse gas emissions is a significant challenge requiring new collaborations between data centres, chip and server manufacturers, and infrastructure providers." This idea is expanded on by Eric Herzog of Infinidat, who brings us back to AI: "The blossoming of green storage will be demonstrated in 2024 by reduced energy consumed to power storage systems, while still protecting data. We'll see bigger capacity systems being installed that take up less space than traditional arrays… Enterprises will increasingly turn to AI for the capabilities to optimise storage capacity and streamline management, resulting in more efficiency. Gartner predicts that by 2025 half of all data centres will deploy AI/ML to increase efficiency by up to 30%. AI will also be used to optimise cooling." Fred Lherault of Pure Storage says: "A growing number of data centres are full, and don't have the space or power available to deploy new platforms. To optimise the sustainability of existing data centre footprints, we'll see operators looking to switch to new, more power efficient technology, with smaller space and cooling requirements. This is in essence extending the life of the data centre - an essential factor when considering the need for new technologies in the wake of the rise of AI." Mark Molyneux of Cohesity goes further still, arguing that most if not all organisations need to go on a 'data diet' in 2024: "We know that we live in a time of climate emergency, and yet there are no concerted efforts amongst enterprises or the IT industry to drive down those volumes of Data. Efficiency and management alone do not solve the issues that we are just storing too much of everything, for too long." He says firms should consolidate data on a common platform instead of operating dozens or even hundreds of separate silos. There, this data can be further reduced using standard techniques such as deduplication and compression, with reduction rates of 96% possible as a result. Then, he says: "Use AI to index and classify data according to its content and value for the company. Everything that is without value can be deleted. 2024 should be the year when we don't end up with more, but take responsibility to reach the end of the year with less." ST 14 STORAGE Jan/Feb 2024 @STMagAndAwards www.storagemagazine.co.uk MAGAZINE
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