Traditionally, the server, storage, and network equipment housed in data centers around the globe get all the attention. Headlines are crafted around hyperscale computing, artificial intelligence (AI), machine learning (ML), or anything that furthers the digital revolution taking place in the cloud. But recently, the spotlight has been back on the brick-and-mortar data center and, interestingly, on one of its lesser celebrated elements — the server cabinet.
Data center cabinets have been the proverbial wallflower at the dance, quietly housing the IT gear and standing in the shadows as the gear gets all the attention. But the thinking about these cabinets is changing to focus on flexibility in an increasingly competitive data center landscape. As anyone who has lived through the last several waves of server density increases and compute evolutions knows, designing a fixed physical infrastructure to support a constantly moving target is challenging at best.