Cloud gains momentum

Cautious optimism i.e. a careful and common sense approach is what many IT directors have been practicing since the turn of the year, particularly in their approach to datacenter investments.

Key trends for the remainder of 2013 and into 2014 will not be too different from what is driving the industry forward today. Investment will continue to pour into the refinement, enhancement, and advancement of data center design with cloud computing continuing to be the primary focus and growth engine supported by big data, storage, converged systems and automation technologies.

Cloud

The Middle East region will witness increased adoption of public, private and hybrid cloud across the region, due in large part to the fact that businesses feel more confident about cloud security than they did in previous years.

Cloud computing is going to be the driving factor behind growth in the IT services sector - outpacing at five times the rate of the IT industry over the coming years.

Innovative businesses are identifying the value proposition and cost efficiencies associated with cloud, and moving suitable workloads to the IT delivery model. This is evident from the steady shift of large and medium businesses starting to adopt some sort of cloud services. Security has also continued to play a factor in the lack of adoption amongst organizations dealing with information of particularly sensitive nature - however with a number of high profile information security orientated organizations adopting cloud services including businesses within the financial services sector, this is the clearest indication yet that cloud will continue to be the buzz word in 2014 and beyond.

According to a study by Gartner, the size of the cloud computing market could reach $150 billion in 2013 - sighting up to 60% of server workloads being virtualized by 2014.

Big data and Storage

As businesses begin to better understand what big data means, related benefits will become clearer. For instance, big data will enable businesses to use information that was collected for one purpose, for an entirely different purpose.

As the capacity grows and datacenters look toward becoming more energy efficient, emerging technology such as Solid State Drives (SSDs) can help datacenters achieve various goals. The massive storage capacity of SSDs enhances the performance of a datacenter by reducing the overall footprint, as far fewer SSDs displace a greater number of disks. This in turn will have a direct impact on the square footage of the average datacenter considerably reducing power and cooling costs - the single largest operational expense.

Converged systems

Convergence will also be high on the agenda with new technologies optimizing storage, storage server management, and servers within a converged eco-system. Convergence adoption will be enhanced as businesses look to improve agility and staff efficiency.

Gartner reports that converged system infrastructure now accounts for a 3.5% slice of the total IT infrastructure business, with a growth rate of over 50% annually, hitting $83 billion this year.

Automation

Automation is also playing an influential role in the datacenter, with many operators increasingly relying on automation technology in order to free up human resources - enabling IT staff to focus on more specific non-operational tasks.