Why People Are as Essential as Technology to Effective Data Center Automation

As the demands placed on modern data centers intensify, automation offers an effective means to balance human oversight with big data analysis.

With the proliferation of data-intensive technologies ranging from the Internet of Things and edge computing to predictive analytics and artificial intelligence, today’s data center professionals have to contend with a variety of increasingly daunting challenges across their operational landscapes. And, as organizations continue to find new use cases for these technologies, such challenges are only going to intensify.

In fact, research shows that global data center IP traffic is set to grow three-fold by 2021, compounding at an annual growth rate of 25 percent. Over the same time period, total data center workloads and compute instances are set to more than double—and are on track to triple for cloud data centers.

For data center professionals preparing to meet the demands of such data-intensive technologies, automation can provide some much-needed support across their data center operations. As Mordor Intelligence notes, “The boom in social networking, analytics, cloud computing, and mobile computing is projected to positively impact the need for automation in data centers.” Indeed, per Mordor Intelligence research, the data center automation market is expected to grow from $6.23 billion in 2018 to $16.68 billion in 2024.

But while automation is poised to play a major role in data center operations, IT professionals needn’t be concerned about being rendered obsolete by extensively automated data centers. By streamlining core data center operations and handling a number of highly repetitive tasks, automation will enable IT professionals to take on more nuanced, strategic roles in the data centers of tomorrow.

Use Cases for Data Center Automation

As automation takes hold in more and more data centers, its viable use cases are expanding rapidly. For instance, automation tools can plan and carry out data center tasks including performing data storage backups and replications, installing the latest security patches, and streamlining setting configurations. While data center professionals are more than capable of executing these tasks on their own, leveraging automation can help them improve accuracy, provide historical records, and create the bandwidth to tackle larger projects.

Beyond these routine tasks, automation can have a transformative effect on the way that data centers operate. As industry stakeholders know, data centers consume an incredible amount of energy in the process of staying cool and siphoning off excess heat. Maintaining normal operations relies on the effective management of power and cooling systems, but fluctuating demand can cause a facility's energy needs to ebb and flow. As a solution, automated predictive analytics platforms can mine historical information and model future energy consumption in order to help facilities conserve resources and boost performance.

Additionally, automation can support data center professionals by monitoring critical equipment and anticipating potential systems failures. When equipped with artificial intelligence capabilities, automated data centers can alert staff when equipment has degraded and is at risk of causing widespread issues across a digital infrastructure. This allows data center professionals to replace equipment before it fails rather than waiting until a problem manifests.

Automation can also provide data center professionals with greater, more centralized control over their digital infrastructures. Simply put, by knitting assets across a data center together, subjecting them to rigorous automated control, and reducing the risk of human error, automated systems make life easier for data center professionals. For example, automation can help streamline the incident ticketing process, handling issues from across the full range of data center infrastructure in a centralized location and requesting human intervention only when absolutely necessary.

The Human Dimension of Automation

While the potential use cases for data center automation abound, the most effective automated systems make room for the consideration and accommodation of fundamentally human concerns. This will look different from one data center to the next depending on organizational specifics and industry needs, but generally speaking, it means thinking strategically about how automation tools fit into an organization’s culture and structure.

Effective automation requires the recognition of the direct relationship between the complexity of the task being automated and the amount of human oversight that will be needed. Intelligent systems can automate the operational processes described above, but IT professionals’ expertise is still an essential piece of understanding how these intelligent systems fit within the operations of a broader data center.

For example, insofar as it can handle a variety of low-level issues, automation can be a major value-add when it comes to incident monitoring. Data center professionals are only prompted to deal with the most pressing problems, allowing them to devote their full attention to addressing potentially critical incidents—and figuring out how to prevent them in the future. In this way, intelligent systems can help IT professionals tackle larger, more strategic questions rather than spend their time running around putting out small fires.

Beyond the potential for collaboration between automation tools and data center experts, the human dimension of automation requires an appreciation for organizational culture and personal expertise. Granted, team members that have had one operational role in the past might need to be encouraged to explore new, innovative roles that fit more naturally into the automated data center paradigm. But rather than replacing them or making them obsolete, automation can allow data center professionals to bring their knowledge of capacity planning, cybersecurity, and more to bear on bigger-picture initiatives.

Striking—and Investing in—the Right Balance

For all intents and purposes, automation is a necessity in the emerging big data era. However, it should be approached strategically, and with an eye toward opportunities for human-machine collaboration. This means organizations will need to consider how they can strike the right balance between automating routine tasks and empowering staff to take on increasingly innovative, strategic roles.

While investing in data center automation may be daunting, the benefits are well worth the time, effort, and resources necessary to get such an initiative up and running. For smaller organizations considering where to start, engaging the services of a virtual CIO can often be the easiest way to begin the transition to efficiency-driving data center automation.