This audio was created using Microsoft Azure Speech Services
The demand for cloud computing resources is soaring, driven by both consumers and enterprises. This is setting the stage for hyperscalers to explore innovative solutions, such as prefabricated modular data centers, to quickly scale out their data center capacity.
Market drivers of cloud computing
On the consumer side, demand is increasing for bandwidth-heavy streaming media applications, such as Netflix and Spotify. Social media activity is also surging with Tik Tok, Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook leading the way. According to Mordor Intelligence: “Social media has evolved to be a powerful tool, with over 2.28 billion users worldwide, generating volumes of data in the form of blogs, tweets, updates, images, and videos.”
Business demand for cloud resources is also skyrocketing. Most companies have embraced a cloud-first strategy in which new applications are written for the cloud, and legacy applications are either moved to the cloud or replaced with cloud-based SaaS equivalents.
Companies are also moving data processing (Big Data) to the cloud to take advantage of the scalability that the hyperscalers can offer. And the move to remote work has resulted in a spike in the usage of collaboration technology such as Zoom and Teams, which takes place on cloud platforms.
Hyperscalers ramp up their capacity
To keep up with demand, hyperscale cloud service providers are racing to build out data center capacity as fast as they can. The major cloud service providers are scaling up by constructing massive data center campuses in centralized locations. And they are expanding to provide localized, low-latency, and high performance data centers globally.
“Every time more software apps and more technology are deployed, it ends up in the cloud, driving the need for more compute and more capacity for cloud data centers,” said Joe Kramer, Global Director of Sales and Marketing of Prefabricated Modular Data Centers at Schneider Electric. I had a chance to chat with Joe recently to get his insights on cloud expansion trends that you can view in this video.
In our conversation, we discuss the role of prefabricated modular data centers in supporting cloud computing growth based on their ease of deployment, portability, and compact size. To learn more about prefab in general, you can also access my recent blog post, How Modular Data Center Solutions are Contributing to the Rapid Growth of the Data Center Industry.
How prefabricated modular data centers can enable cloud growth
There are a number of ways in which prefab modular data centers can help hyperscalers build and manage their expanding data center infrastructure.
Prefab solutions are quicker to build and deploy. They can be built in a factory in parallel with the hyperscalers building out their data centers. This increases the speed at which the hyperscalers can increase their capacity.
Once data centers are built, they need to be monitored and managed. Prefab solutions can be equipped with software that allows for remote monitoring. This means that hyperscalers can monitor and manage data centers anywhere in the world. And preventive maintenance, enabled by the data provided by remote monitoring equipment, can improve performance and reduce unplanned downtime.
And even in scenarios in which the hyperscalers are putting up their own physical buildings, they look to companies like Schneider Electric to provide the modular power and cooling units that provide reliability and consistency across sprawling data center campuses.
To learn more about the role of prefab in cloud computing expansion, watch this video, The Future of Prefabricated Modular Data Centers – Cloud Computing Expansion, and learn about trends in cloud computing and how it relates to prefab, modular data centers.
