Edge computing will play a huge role in the development of future data centres. As more and more people adopt smart solutions, not only in companies but also in their own homes, the demand for edge computing will continue to grow, and so will the demand for edge computing devices. This in turn will change data centres as the decentralization of computing power will have a direct impact on the type of data centre we will be seeing in the future. According to statista.com, the value of the global sma It is also worth considering the relationship between edge computing with the 5g network as an alternative to classical data centres, which will allow the faster development of applications related to AI or the IoT. Edge computing allows data to be processed closer to the source, reducing latency. This is likely to lead to the development of mobile data centres, which can easily be situated, for example, near large sports events, concerts, etc. This solution can also eliminate connectivity problems in remote areas. The Global chip shortage The pandemic continues to wreak havoc, causing product shortages and supply chain slowdowns. In addition, a global semiconductor shortage has impacted nearly every product that requires sensors, including cars, PCs, tablets, and game consoles. Industry experts predict the chip shortage is anticipated to continue well into 2022, which will cause prices to rise. We believe the companies that are struggling with replacing end-of-life equipment will find creative workarounds to alleviate the challenges caused by shortages, including purchasing used or remanufactured equipment and/or extending the life of existing devices with hardware warranties. We expect that, as enterprises look to employ more sustainable models, this chip shortage will act as a catalyst for greater circular economy engagement in 2022. In 2021, we saw companies turning to different asset classes, such as Chromebooks, to replace older equipment. We anticipate this will continue next year. We also predict more organisations will consider moving a larger percentage of their workloads to the cloud and leverage newer solutions such as virtual desktops (VDI) which allow users to run PCs in the cloud. Well, it’s obvious that data centres will remain the core of any infrastructure: Although we start seeing more data, apps or users outside the data centre than inside, it will continue to and should remain the primary location of your critical information and the core of any infrastructure.

No matter if it's a private, hybrid, or public cloud data centre, no data should ever leave a data centre under any circumstances. You should also never leave data you no longer need in it, or if you do remove an asset from a data centre such as drives, you need to make sure it has been erased first. It’s not only critical from a security perspective but from a sustainability one too.

The explosion of data means the environmental impact of storing it is only going to get greater. According to Dr Bresnihan of National University of Ireland, Maynooth, data centres could use 70% of Ireland’s electricity by 2030. In 2022, we expect to see more data centre consolidation from a sustainability and a manageability and security point of view where smaller, older data centres will be migrated into more modern and energyefficient ones.

However, data centres of the future are set to be even more environmentally friendly. The demand for data storage is certainly not going to slow down, but data centres will be expanding and improving their use of data compression, deduplication, and other efficiencyenhancing methods. An additional factor is that the cooling of modern data centres is carried out with liquid or even so-called passive systems. Air cooling, which has been used to date to maintain the good condition of servers, consumes a huge amount of resources. Liquid cooling, on the other hand, enables a rapid reduction in temperature and energy consumption and is often set up as a closed ecological cycle. Passively cooled systems with the latest technology in terms of components that consume significantly less power and tolerate higher temperatures will be significantly more predominant in the future. Future data centres are also being designed and located for better efficiency. A good example of these are Google, Facebook, and Amazon, who have purchased land in Sweden to build data centres on, as in a cooler region fewer resources are required for cooling the servers. Microsoft is taking an altogether more unusual, but very promising route with its Project Natick, which researches the options of deploying subsea datacenters. Placed on the seabed, cocooned from corrosive oxygen, moisture, and bumps, data centres can seemingly thrive. At least the servers of Naticks underwater data center with 864 servers and 27.6 petabytes of the disk (roughly 27.6 million gigabytes) showed a failure rate of 1/8th that of a land-based control group, according to Microsoft. And with natural seawater acting as the coolant, it will even be an environmental win. The shift to hybrid cloud will gain pace The past 18 months have seen organizations turn to massive so-called ‘hyperscalers’ such as AWS, Microsoft Azure, and Google Cloud to maintain business operations in the age of remote work. As companies re-evaluate their emergency infrastructure plans, many are undertaking a rethink when it comes to optimising and rightsizing their cloud resources and choosing to adopt a hybrid cloud approach. And they’re right to do so. In 2022, expect more companies to become increasingly savvy about availability, uptime promises, and usage costs By relying only on the public cloud, enterprises risk spending more than they need to. Plus, they’re finding

it difficult to scale services without undue cost. By partnering with an IaaS provider and limiting public cloud usage to supporting peak loads and less trafficintensive applications, they’re able to reduce latency times and cut costs in the long run. In 2022, expect more companies to become increasingly savvy about availability, uptime promises, and usage costs as they evaluate which infrastructure models truly represent the best fit for their enterprise goals moving forward. Good CIOs are all too aware that cloud management optimization isn’t just a one-time process and will regularly revisit and review their setup to ensure maximum efficiency. Indeed, a growing number now recognize that the great benefit of the hybrid world is that it’s possible to continuously move, change and redeploy workloads to best suit business needs during seasonal peaks and troughs, growth and reduction times, or to support additional or new projects on the horizon. Providing an efficient, tailored, and cost-effective option for addressing the lack of customization many businesses experience when they try to scale their infrastructure, services, applications, and data within a public cloud environment, 2022 will be the year in which more and more customers adopt a ‘best of both worlds’ approach and initiate a hybrid cloud strategy in a bid to better manage both cloud spending and performance. AI Becomes More Widespread Artificial Intelligence is one of the primary tools in facility automation as it holds a great deal of promise for automating infrastructure so that it requires less human touch to remain functional. The end game is creating an environment where data center workers are deeply integrated with technology automation, each making the other job easier, as opposed to the technology replacing the worker. Google has utilized AI to assist with managing the cooling systems in their data centers, allowing for realtime updates on changes in weather or workloads so that the system can allocate resources to particular areas of the facility as needed. AI is also commonly used to monitor emergency backup generators by examining the machinery at a microscopic level with sound and video, sending alerts to human staff when a defect or change in functioning is detected. Based on our interactions with data center providers this past year, machine learning software that focuses on maximizing the efficiency of a data centers hardware will remain a point of emphasis. Multicloud Solutions Gain Popularity Multi-cloud systems are becoming increasingly popular, and this trend shows no signs of stopping anytime soon. As organizations try to accommodate the cloud infrastructure of the companies they buy, multicloud may not be a strategy but rather a predicament in which an organization has found itself in. This issue is a regular occurrence following the merging of two companies whose differing cloud environments inadvertently create a multi-vendor cloud strategy overnight. One organization may utilize Amazon web services while the other has Google Cloud, and just like that the main goal of the IT department shifts to bridging the gap between these two services. Whatever brought an organization from a single cloud provider to multiple clouds, the prevalence of cloud providers and the proprietary software that comes along with it will mean that more and more organizations will have to integrate a multi-cloud solution into their IT budget. Marketplace Adoption Reaches New Heights eCommerce has become a vital part of our collective buying habits throughout the last two decades. Enterprises can leverage these new habits by utilizing an eCommerce platform and strategy that allows customers to shop how and when they want. This is especially true for enterprise IT management teams who typically have a lot on their plate. Given the technology available to organizations today, there’s no reason a client shouldn’t be able to find pricing and procure colocation space or cloud storage resources at the click of a button and on their own time. If a business can provide this option for its consumers, they will appeal to a broader array of clients who are all looking for a convenient and flexible experience. As the market increasingly shifts to the digital marketplace, building a solid eCommerce platform can give organizations the ability to remain relevant in a shifting market. Whether it’s purchasing colocation or cloud solutions, IT decision-makers are no different than an other consumer in that they want to see transparent pricing available for solutions that can be purchased with the click of a button.