In the fourth and final installment of this series, Chatsworth Products (CPI) product marketing manager and industry expert David Knapp, shares his insights around large cloud platforms seeking to deploy data center capacity at an accelerated rate and the impact to the supply chain with Data Center Frontier.
Before we get into this final Q & A, let’s take a look back at the recent installments:
In Part One, David responds to: Discussion of industry trends is dominated by the rise of the cloud computing model. How has this cloud-driven disruption impacted the broader data center industry? What are the pros and cons?
In
Part Two, David discusses how merger and acquisition (M&A) deals are influencing the development of the data center industry and if we’re likely to see more M&A activity.
In Part Three, David answer the question: The market for tools to monitor, manage and automate data centers continues to evolve. What are the significant trends in this ecosystem and how effectively are customers using these tools?
Let’s examine the fourth and final question and answer:
Data Center Frontier: The largest cloud platforms are seeking to deploy data center capacity at an accelerated rate. What has this meant to the supply chain for data center delivery?
Knapp: “Traditionally, the data center was fitted with racks, the network was cabled and then computers installed. All were separately sourced and separately installed.”
David goes on to discuss the basic design concept for the cloud and how cloud operators use integrators to deliver a complete rack “full of equipment, preconfigured, cabled and ready to power. To do so, most operators have standardized on a few compute configurations and specific rack configurations.” He notes that Facebook shared these designs in The Open Compute Project (OCP), which is now a separate marketplace.
He continues, “For facilities, this means overhead cable tray and ductwork for airflow management, which is still sourced traditionally as construction materials, is installed ahead of racks.” Deployment is faster because the facility is “fitted in parallel to the compute being configured, instead of the traditional serial approach.”
Brittany Mangan, Digital Content Specialist