How the Internet of Things (IoT) is Promoting Growth in the Micro Data Center Market

The Internet of Things (IoT) continues to be an evolving challenge for data centers. As facility managers struggle to meet capacity requirements and latency issues, the need for a flexible solution is greater and more critical than ever.

With limitations in space and availability, facility managers need a state-of-the-art approach to accommodate these demands. Which is why many are utilizing Micro Data Centers at the network edge.

• They need a Micro Data Center at the network’s edge.
• What they’re looking for is a Micro Data Center – an all-in-one solution with powerful computing capacity but a small physical footprint.
• What they’re finding is that a Micro Data Center at the network edge provides powerful compute capacity and a small footprint.
• A Micro Data Center provides the power and flexibility they’re looking for with and comes with a small footprint.

What is a Micro Data Center?

A Micro Data Center is a pre-designed modular data center which combines power, cooling, monitoring, and racks that can easily integrate into your existing data center.

Most of us have had some interaction with a Micro Data Center and haven’t even realized it.

• Did you use the virtual assistant on your phone today? MDCs are widely used in the telecom industry to reduce latency to an end user with a local MDC handling the security, data storage, and connectivity needs within the scope of the IoT.
• Did you order groceries online? An MDC probably was the bridge between the “brick and mortar” and “online” shopping experience.
• Are you taking an online class? Yes, again, an MDC is probably your connection from the remote campus to the school’s main data center.

MarketsandMarkets.com reports that in 2016 micro data centers were a $2.2Bn market with anticipated growth to $8.47Bn by 2022. This represents a staggering growth rate of 25%+ per year. So why the rapid growth in MDC? Why not expand our on-premise data centers?

Estimates are that by 2020, 20 billion things will be connected via the internet, IoT. This offers significant challenges for a large-scale data center.

How Can a Micro Data Center Help?

Traditional rooms are costly and energy inefficient. They can’t rapidly expand and take months of planning to get in place. The hybrid solution to this was to move to the cloud. It’s a workable solution but can be expensive per user and an “out of the box” approach isn’t flexible enough for all businesses.

This is what is spurring MDC growth. A micro data system sits on the edge of the on-premise system close to a site or location but not necessarily within the enterprise center’s physical space. It provides storage data closer to the end user, acts as a hub for an ISP, enhances the speed of the data transfer by reducing latency, and has a lower operational cost than a large data center. It communicates via IoT accumulated data from factory sensors, wearable tech, driverless vehicles, and any of the thousands of internet connected apps used in business today. But it is still a data center and has the same needs as any on premise system.

Features of a Micro Data Center

An MDC can be used to supplement the capacity of a large data center, act as a remote data center or data storage facility, or provide capacity for disaster recovery. It is modular, self-contained, and can include:

• Power
• Cooling and climatic control
• Monitoring and network connectivity
• Provide physical security
• Fire suppression
• Shock absorption
• Electro-magnetic (EMI) shielding
• Power conditioning
• UPS – uninterruptible power supply
• Battery
• A rack

It deploys easily: some are on casters or even self-propelled. It can be small enough to fit under a desk or the size of a large semi-trailer. It’s modular and scalable and expands easily to allow for rapid growth. It can be factory built, assembled, and tested – whether it’s one or 50 units – then moved to a location quicker than building an on-premise system and can relocate when the need arises.

Go Micro with Your Local Vertiv Office

As a Local Vertiv Office (LVO), we believe that the Vertiv micro data centers provide an all-in-one solution combining power, cooling, monitoring, and racks that are built for unique expectations and constraints.

Leveraging SmartRow™ DCR, SmartRow™ DCX, and SmartMod™ product families, Vertiv creates solutions with powerful computing capacity but a small physical footprint.
Interested in learning more? Contact us today!