Modernising data centres is necessary to support application and cloud-centric evolutions. The rapid adoption of AI/ML and other resource-hungry systems has shown traditional infrastructure is often not able to cope. So, is it time for a smarter data centre?
Traditional infrastructures often struggles with:
- Siloed compute and storage
- Disjointed network and security architectures
- Operations that hinder centralised IT management
- Limited orchestration, security, policy, and visibility
A data centre that’s simpler to provision, deploy, and manage while being transparently responsive to the needs of application developers, IT Ops, DevOps, and the business can bring many benefits.
HPE’s latest report on smart data centres reveals the hardware and services necessary to build a resilient, best-fit data centre. We explain all below.
- Hardware-accelerated DPU-enabled switches
Originally deployed in servers, DPU technology is now available in top-of-rack (ToR) switches, which combine standard Ethernet/IP switching with embedded, hardware-accelerated DPU capabilities. These extend leaf-spine networking with stateful distributed micro-segmentation and provide east-west firewalling, NAT, encryption, and telemetry services.
- Fourth-generation distributed services architecture
Move beyond basic network connectivity to provide integrated services throughout the fabric. Embed network and security functions directly into architecture and distribute these services across all switches, not just at the edge.
Inspired by hyperscale, this approach integrates infrastructure services into a single OS managed through an automated controller.
- Extend Zero Trust closer to applications
Zero Trust assumes that no entity, user, or device should be automatically trusted, whether inside or outside the network perimeter.
Your data centre will verify every user, device, and application trying to access resources, regardless of location, limiting access to only what’s necessary (least privilege principle). HPE’s zero-trust edge-to-cloud solutions monitor and log all activity to detect anomalies.
- Blend network and security AIOps
Traditional data centre fabrics often lack comprehensive telemetry, requiring network probes and software agents to be deployed.
A distributed services architecture solves this by providing accurate and ubiquitous telemetry across the entire data centre, natively and without traffic impact.
It offers benefits such as mean-time-to-innocence for networking teams, integration with security and network performance tools, automatic anomaly detection, and leveraging AI/ML tools with complete high-fidelity telemetry.
- Leverage the edge, colocation, and IaaS
Colocation and edge-to-cloud infrastructure as a service is your ticket to managing the abundance of data generated at the edge in remote locations like factory floors, retail sites, and smart cities.
It enables a hybrid cloud reality, combining public cloud, edge, colocation, and on-premises locations for mission-critical workloads. With it, you can optimise IT spending through pay-as-you-go pricing, eliminate up-front payments and egress charges, and focus on high-value activities rather than managing data centres.
To find out more on how DSI Technology Solutions can help you develop a smarter data centre call us now.
