Data has become the lifeblood of today’s global digital economy, powering diverse industrial activity from retail and manufacturing to infrastructure and transport, and it is the data center that is forming the backbone to this data influx. With the proliferation of data across our digital world accelerating at a phenomenal speed, it is anticipated that over 175 ZB of data will be generated annually by 2025.
Digital transformation is driving data-heavy applications, such as the IoT and cloud, and, as a result, the role of data centers is also expanding, serving as a vital intersection point for the data of individuals, businesses, and economies. As an ever-growing part of business in the modern world, the data center influences the functioning of many aspects of the business enterprise, including data backup and recovery, networking, website hosting, e-mail management, and security, providing support for cloud storage applications and e-commerce transactions. To meet worldwide demand, hyperscale providers have been building data centers and expanding their fleet in the past few years. However, increasing complexities of operating and maintaining these facilities are creating an unprecedented set of challenges that must be met with a new approach.