Data centre 2016 predictions

Nigel Oakley, Director EMEA Cloudbuilding Centre of Excellence at Juniper Networks, offers some thoughts on the year ahead.

Wednesday, 23rd December 2015 Posted 9 years ago in by Phil Alsop

In recent years, the digital economy has begun to transform the business landscape. As a strategic asset and driver of new business models, high performing data center networks are focal for any business intending to stay ahead of unfolding trends and disruptions that the digital economy presents.

This may explain why in 2015 IDC<http://www.idc.com/getdoc.jsp?containerId=prUS25946315> estimated that total spending on cloud IT infrastructure (server, storage, and Ethernet switch, excluding double counting between server and storage) had reached almost ?22 billion.

I predict we'll see the following data center and cloud developments in 2016:

100G Networks Become the Norm Due to Marketplace Demands
The drive for faster, more scalable networks will only intensify in 2016. Software defined networking (SDN), a technology that was adopted heavily in 2015 as more and more companies realized its value, will increasingly meet these demands. SDN controllers will be more widely deployed thanks to turn-key SDN solutions. The push for more scale has customer verticals taking aggressive steps to adjust to the increased network demand.

80 percent of Enterprise Networks Will Adopt Some Form of Open Networking in 2016
The open networking movement has been driven in part by the heavy demand for more flexibility and efficiency. Silicon Valley heavyweights Facebook and Google have been pushing for the opening up of platforms for a while now, something that will continue into 2016. With standards changing and platforms opening up to end vendor lock-in, these developments will only aid the open networking movement's momentum. According to a recent IHS report by analyst Clifford Grossner, by 2019, so-called bare metal switches, an integral part of open networking, will account for 26 percent of data center Ethernet ports shipped worldwide. Previous usage was closer to 12 percent in early 2015, signaling that open networking tools will be on a steady upswing in the next 18 months. Open networking tools will rise as data centers themselves adapt to the changing times as well. A new landscape, which seems to signal a data center that's more open than ever before.

Containerized Applications are Finally Ready for Mass Enterprise Adoption
Containerized applications are evolving with enterprises large and small taking notice. Recent announcements from Docker now allow for containers to discover where in the cluster, in the data center, or even in a remote cloud, their sister containers were residing and automatically connect to them. In addition the increasing adoption of Kubernetes, created and supported by Google, has gained traction and momentum with events like Kubecon. With better connectivity and claims that overall security has been improved, a sticking point for enterprises in the past when it comes to evaluating containerization technology, all signs are pointing towards rampant adoption in 2016.