Posts Tagged ‘peak demand’

One of the Biggest Tech Shifts of Our Lifetime

Thursday, February 25th, 2010

Today, companies involve huge IT departments that are dedicated to storing and sharing extensive data. This means huge amounts of data and data servers being handled by companies who are at best minimally familiar with the ins and outs of computing. Presently there are more than 15 million computer servers operating globally. Every organization has to build its network for its peak demand leaving 80% of the running servers idle every day, which as you may imagine leads to huge waste of time and money for these companies.

There is an expansion of networks, computer storage and servers, and the growth has left companies wanting a new solution to their computing needs. “Data Utilities” will allow companies to discard their data storage infrastructure and hand off all their data storage and maintenance needs to third parties able to efficiently and responsibly manage them.  These data utilities will allow sharing of servers to meet the peak needs of companies without requiring the company to pay for and maintain the server during its times of lower demand.

The concept of data utilities isn’t all that new, and we all use them everyday.  For example, every time you share photos through services such as Facebook, snapfish, Shutterfly, Kodak, or Flicker, you are operating in the cloud and using a data utility.   Similarly, the online software suite from Google Apps allows users to generate and access information and spreadsheets exclusively online.  Users can create, edit, and share all sorts of files from any computer with Internet access.

Basically any kind of storage can be met by a data utility. It is estimated that the internet contains 5 million terabytes of data. That is just an initiating point since constant improvement will only increase storage demands. Data utilities will allow the collaboration of computing power, data storage, software applications, and other IT needs through a global network. It will permit businesses to concentrate on what to offer rather than technical know-how of how to offer the service.

At the time of great economic concern where cost efficiency is gold, the data utility trend has only hastened.  IT decisions are being made based on economic reasoning as well as a technical viewpoint. Data utilities enable companies to utilize resources on demand and pay for them when needed.