Setting the standard for power distribution in data centres: Part 1

The Power Distribution Unit is an important piece of every data-centre rack, according to HARTING.

Data centre connectivity keeps a company running smoothly. Disruptions, whether they last for minutes, hours or days, can wreak havoc on a company’s bottom line through lost or corrupted data, lost productivity, and repair costs.

The following three-part article explores the most important trends in data centre connectivity, the Open Compute Project (OCP), and the ways in which HARTING is meeting these challenges head on, providing solutions to today’s challenges with an eye towards future trends.

Data centre trends

As companies generate an increased amount of data about everything from internal operations to customer preferences, the need for data centres to house all of this information increases. Just as standalone desktop computers gave way to networked systems in order to increase information sharing within a company, internally housed servers are giving way to data centres. This change allows for adequate storage of the amount of data companies now generate, share, and utilize in various ways. Data centres enable companies to streamline internal operations, tailor products and services to customer needs, and increase profitability through their data analytics.

Data centres meet the secure storage and retrieval of company information in several ways. Today’s data centres offer expandability, minimal downtime, and rapid deployment. These trends are relevant to traditional data centres, along with less cost intensive solutions: prefabricated data centres and colocation data centres.

Prefabricated data centres and colocation

Not every company can afford to build its own data centre, regardless of its need for storage capacity. Every program, every client profile, every product, process, and web page requires room on a server. Prefabricated data centres are pre-built and can be installed onsite in units the size of shipping containers. They provide an inexpensive option to securely store data on location. A colocation data centre offers rentable equipment or bandwidth from a building shared with other companies. Just as a tenant might rent an apartment, smaller companies may band together to locate their data in a common facility. Data-centre colocation is estimated to reach a $73 billion industry by 2023 in the U.S. alone.

Coming in Parts 2 and 3: More information on the benefits of data centre connectivity, the OCP – and HARTING’s top solution for these challenges.

For more information, contact HARTING.

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