2016 Trends in Datacenter Technologies

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2016 Trends in Datacenter

Technologies

Rhonda Ascierto, Research Director

Andy Lawrence, Research Vice President

Andrew Donoghue, European Research Manager

Daniel Bizo, Senior Analyst

Leading datacenter technology suppliers are attempting to respond to and anticipate significant changes in demand brought about by cloud and hyperscale datacenter operators, among other factors. These changes will unfold over the next several years, but all face growing pressure today to develop cost-effective and energy-efficient products, as many datacenters of all kinds seek to drive down costs.

OCT 2015

PREVIEW

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A B O U T T H E A U T H O R

R H O N DA A S C I E R TO

R E S E A R C H D I R E C T O R

Rhonda Ascierto is a Research Director in the Datacenter Technologies and

Eco-Efficient IT practices at 451 Research. Rhonda has been analyzing the crossroads

of IT and business for more than 15 years. She focuses on datacenter innovation

and energy management in datacenters and across the enterprise. She also

covers technologies that enable the efficient use of all resources and help to

minimize the environmental impact of business activity.

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III

Key Findings

The datacenter is becoming more software-driven, with infrastructure management systems increasingly

integrating with IT management systems. This will make DCIM software more effective and more useful,

including in hybrid datacenter environments – but will force companies and suppliers to innovate more and

to focus on integration.

Prefabricated modular (PFM) datacenter designs are rapidly evolving. We expect PFM datacenters will become

the new benchmark to beat for virtually all use cases, giving operators new options – and with greater speed,

predictability and agility than traditional approaches.

The Open Compute Project and other hyperscale datacenter architectures represent both an opportunity

and a threat to suppliers.

The impact of cloud computing on the datacenter industry and its ecosystems of suppliers is both deep and

wide. Technology suppliers need to adjust their strategies and products accordingly.

The role of datacenters as passive users of energy is slowly beginning to change, with some progressive

facilities finding more effective ways to interact with, and understand, established and emerging energy

suppliers. Over time, the real-time power feed from the grid will become just one of many power sources,

rather than the default option.

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IV

INTRODUCTI ON

FA C I N G C L O U DY H E A D W I N D S , S U P P L I E R S W I L L C H A N G E TA C K

Widespread change across the datacenter sector is disrupting suppliers of equipment, software and services on a number of levels. While executives and investors are buoyed by the secure knowledge that demand for datacenter capacity and datacenter services will continue to grow steadily and globally, their optimism is coupled with uncertainty.

Cloud computing has yet to make its full impact, and the extent and the form of that impact on enterprise and commercial datacenters is still unclear. It will take several years to play out, but demand for on-premises capacity will certainly be offset by the ability to far more easily migrate workloads and place new workloads with cloud providers such as Amazon. This possibility is, in turn, beginning to create new competitive and efficiency pressures; operators looking do ‘more of the same’ or ‘more for less’ are now considering radical change.

Our research shows that there will likely be fewer yet larger enterprise datacenters in 2016 and beyond, as many smaller and regional facilities are consolidated into centralized ‘premium’ sites. While more capacity is being outsourced to public cloud datacenters, a growing number of enterprises are also turning to colocation and hosting providers. Within enterprise and colocation facilities, cost efficiency will be a goal, but not at the expense of availability or reliability. This means high-redundancy facilities will continue to be built, using traditional power topologies and other incumbent equipment. Datacenter equipment suppliers will continue to develop more efficient versions of their products.

Yet their R&D labs are almost unrecognizable from a few years ago, as they develop new technology – and sales and support – strategies to help cloud and other hyperscale datacenters exploit their economies of scale and drive down costs. This is a trend that will only continue in coming years. While hyperscales represent a very small number of sites today, they are the fastest-growing datacenter segment due to demand from cloud providers. They are driving new datacenter designs, technologies and operational approaches, including those proposed by the Open Compute Project (OCP). A small number of other types of datacenters, notably colocation, are also beginning to adopt these non-traditional technologies and designs as a way to differentiate. Over time, more are likely to follow.

There is also significant interest and adoption in prefabricated, standardized datacenters by all sectors of the market, to better align capital expenditure with capacity requirements. Prefabricated modular (PFM) datacenter designs are still emergent yet evolving rapidly and meeting demand for additional capacity in various ways. Some large facilities are being built entirely from prefabbed components. In urban areas and elsewhere, we anticipate that numerous small prefabbed ‘micro-modular’ datacenters will emerge. Edge-of-network requirements, driven by new Internet of Things (IoT) applications, will help fuel their growth.

Regardless of their form, datacenters in the coming years will become increasingly automated and agile across hybrid on- and off-premises environments. Organizations embarking on hybrid datacenter strategies are beginning to realize the need for integrated management tools, driving up demand of datacenter infrastructure management (DCIM) and related software. While DCIM has appeared to be ahead of the market for many years, increasing recognition that well-run datacenters use integrated, fully functional software platforms means DCIM may at last enjoy widespread adoption. However, at this stage of its development, it will be a less distinct market blended with IT provisioning, orchestration and service management. Another area of change is the sourcing and management of energy. This is more of a long-term trend, although progressive datacenters are already finding more effective ways to interact with, and understand, established and emerging energy suppliers. This is leading to a greater variety of different power architectures and purchasing relationships. New approaches to sourcing and management of energy in the datacenter will manifest themselves in a number of ways, with varying impacts on suppliers of traditional power infrastructure and services, and also ancillary datacenter technology vendors. This report presents five trends we see shaping datacenter technologies in the coming year.

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V

451 Research’s 2016 Datacenter Technologies Trends

Source: 451 Research, 2015

M ETHODOLO GY

Reports such as this one represent a holistic perspective on key emerging markets in the enterprise IT space. These markets evolve quickly, though, so 451 Research offers additional services that provide critical marketplace updates. These updated reports and perspectives are presented on a daily basis via the company’s core intelligence service, 451 Research Market Insight. Forward-looking M&A analysis and perspectives on strategic acquisitions and the liquidity environment for technology companies are also updated regularly via Market Insight, which is backed by the industry-leading 451 Research M&A KnowledgeBase.

Emerging technologies and markets are also covered in additional 451 Research channels, including Business Applications; Cloud and IT Services Markets; Data Platforms and Analytics; Datacenter Technologies; Enterprise Mobility; European Services; Information Security; Mobile Telecom; Multi-Tenant Datacenters; Networking; Service Providers; Storage; and Systems and Software Infrastructure.

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Winners

Losers

DCIM Will Move Further Up the IT Stack

Suppliers that can combine and analyze DCIM data with numerous IT – and financial – management tools

Suppliers of DCIM platforms that do not at least promise to meet future DCSO requirements

Prefabricated Datacenters Will Come of Age

Suppliers with messaging clarity and the right balance of design optimization and deployment flexibility

Suppliers that do not (or cannot) develop product enhancements and invest in effective marketing

Hyperscales and the Open Compute Project Will Disrupt

Well-resourced suppliers that have global reach and that can create strategic relationships with hyperscales and rival suppliers

Suppliers that lack the scale, global presence and resources to rapidly innovate

Cloud Will Drive Technical and Business Change

Colos, hosting and cloud companies that operate efficiently and flexibly; suppliers of most classes of datacenter management software; suppliers that develop a strategy to work with larger commercial operators

Suppliers wedded to the enterprise datacenter market, and whose growth is predicated on physical infrastructure redundancy and over-provisioning for availability; software suppliers that don’t participate in the cloud ecosystem

Datacenters Will Evolve from Consumers to Active Energy Players

Suppliers capable of combining utility, datacenter construction resources and/ or dynamic energy management software to support energy-smart infrastructures

Suppliers of legacy energy storage, such as diesel generators, as well as traditional AC power gear and traditional power generation

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VI

TRENDS 1

Trend 1: DCIM Will Move Further Up the IT Stack 1

Figure 1: Global Datacenter Management Software Market Forecast . . . . 2

RECOMMENDATIONS . . . . 2

WINNERS . . . . 2

LOSERS . . . . 2

Trend 2: Prefabricated Datacenters Will Come of Age 3 Figure 2: Aggregate PFM Revenue Forecast 2013-18 ($M) . . . . 4

RECOMMENDATIONS . . . . 4

WINNERS. . . . 5

LOSERS . . . . 5

Trend 3: Hyperscales and the Open Compute Project Will Disrupt Suppliers’ Status Quo 6 RECOMMENDATIONS . . . . 7

WINNERS. . . . 7

LOSERS . . . . 7

Trend 4: Cloud Will Drive Technical and Business Change 8 Figure 3: Datacenter Space Is Being Distributed . . . . 9

Figure 4: Companies Evaluating Disaster Recovery Strategies – Anticipated Site or Service Type . . . . 10

RECOMMENDATIONS. . . 11

WINNERS . . . 11

LOSERS . . . 11

Trend 5: Datacenters Will Evolve from Consumers to Active Energy Players 12 Figure 5: Different Forms of Renewable Energy Supply for Datacenters . . . . 13

RECOMMENDATIONS. . . 13

WINNERS. . . 14

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VII

THE LONG VIEW 15

Figure 6: The Worldwide Datacenter Installed Base . . . .15

FURTHER READING 16

INDEX OF COMPANIES 17