The era of the software-defined data centre which provides CIOs with the ability to remotely increase network capacity within a data centre just like you would a virtual machine has arrived, the technical director of TelecityGroup in Ireland John Shorten told Siliconrepublic.com.
As Shorten describes it the biggest shifts in technology in the last decade were initially in the area of virtualisation of computers and servers.
“There now seems to be a shift within the industry to bring this to the network layer.
“We are seeing software-defined networks layer switches, load balancers, firewalls being kept as templates that are ready to roll out based upon whenver a customer needs to scale it up,” Shorten said.
Ireland’s John Shorten on the impact of the cloud on enterprises”>TelecityGroup Ireland’s John Shorten on the impact of the cloud on enterprises
Headquartered in London, TelecityGroup operates data centres in prime locations across Europe, including Amsterdam, Frankfurt, London, Manchester, Milan, Paris, Stockholm and Dublin.
TelecityGroup, which acquired Irish data centre group Data Electronics in August 2011 for €100m, operates three carrier-neutral data centres in Dublin, with a combined capacity of more than 5,000 sq metres and 5MW of customer available power. It recently revealed plans to add a further 7.5MW of incremental customer power, bringing capacity to 12.5MW across its sites.
These data centres are key international internet hubs and offer access to more than 40 carrier networks and access to INEX, the Dublin internet exchange.
Shorten explains that the level of flexibility for CIOs and ability to add capacity on the fly has never been greater.
“In the same way that we’ve had virtualized machines using hypervisors like Hyper-V that can be scaled up according to load, we now have the ability to do the same on the network layer – that’s a very exciting prospect for us.
“Until now we’ve been using technologies in the industry that are 10 or 15 years old but very hard to scale without having to pop in and out hardware. Now we have the ability to increase the network capacity just like you would a virtual machine,” Shorten explained.
