Thought Leadership

Timely advice and valuable technical insight can be the catalyst to realising the swift return on any investment decision. Richard Clifford, Head of Solutions at Keysource, the global data centre and critical environment specialist, explains.

The global pandemic has accelerated widespread digital transformation for businesses of all sizes. This has meant a greater need for remote working and collaborative practices which in turn means an increase in demand for having data and services ‘in the cloud’ which has now become a necessity. The question is how can organisations best manage this?

The emergence of cloud, hype and media attention has put a spotlight on Edge as the industry’s next big thing and the enabler to our autonomous and connected future. In recent years, there has been a ‘decentralisation’ of data generation, and advances in new technologies and the IoT, fuelled by 5G, have driven the need for processing and storing data with location in mind – to the edge.

IT aside, the vast majority of power usage in a data centre is due to cooling and the need to relocate heat away from the CPU. Traditionally, air cooling is the go-to solution and makes up the vast majority of cooling solutions in the data centre world.

The Keysource 2020 State of the Industry Report, unsurprisingly, is dominated by the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic and the technology changes and challenges that it has brought to business and its effect on people’s ability to work, their priorities and decision-making processes.