The International Data Centre Day was launched by 7X24 Exchange International, an NGO that provides an educational forum mainly focused on the challenges faced by industry professionals. The first International Data Centre Day was celebrated four years ago, on October 29, 2019. A dedicated website, internationaldatacenterday.org, was also launched with objectives to create awareness about data centres and their future. 

The primary objectives include 

  • Educating people about what data centres are and how they work by providing them with resources.
  • Illustrating the importance of the data centre industry in our day-to-day lives.
  • Sharing information about pursuing a career as a data centre professional.
  • Creating more opportunities for mission-critical firms to recruit future employees.

7X24 Exchange said, “International Data Centre Day provides the industry with an opportunity to show a collaborative effort about what data centres are and why they are so important to our connected world, and a wide array of career opportunities in the data centre industry. This way, the industry can connect with future generations, ensure a steady flow of skilled labour, enhance the public image of data centres, and safeguard the ongoing prosperity of the data centre industry. 

Scant awareness about data centres

Robert Cassiliano, Chairman & CEO of 7×24 Exchange International, said, “In 2015, few members challenged our organisation to find qualified talent for the data centre industry. However, we later realised that many parents, teachers and students are unaware of the data centre industry. There was a need to create awareness about what data centres are and how they operate. Hence, we started the STEM initiative, which includes mentoring programmes like – the Women in Mission Critical Operations (WiMCO) community, a Data Centre 101 session, video and then creation of International Data Centre Day”.

There are about 7.2 million data centres worldwide. The data centre industry is continuously growing and functions in various parts of a business, such as data backup, networking, website hosting, email management and security.  

Image: Number of data centres worldwide in 2022, by country; Statista 

Software will run next-gen data centres

ManageEngine, an enterprise IT management division of Zoho Corporation, envisages that the next generation of data centres will be logically run and managed by software, paving the way for software-defined data centres and promising increased agility, higher productivity, and reduced costs. Rajkumar Vijayarangakannan, Technical Evangelist at ManageEngine, says, “By deploying predictive analytics, machine learning, and cognitive computing, ManageEngine plans to upgrade its data centre monitoring product lines with AI/ML-based models, along with real-time data analytics; this will tremendously improve data centre performance and energy efficiency.”

Robots to support man in maintenance 

Data centres ask for plenty of manual effort in routine activities which, for now, are fulfilled by data engineers at work. Rajkumar explained how steering towards automation frees data centre engineers from repetitive and monotonous work and enables them to focus on more important issues. He mentioned, for example, deploying robots to look after the physical variables of data centres, like temperature and humidity and the other metrics that need to be precise, can lift the burden of manual governance from data centre engineers. “This drives them to explore ways to automate the network layer, namely delivering critical network services like assigning IP addresses or provisioning DNS records. With those tasks out of the way, data centre engineers can focus on the control layer and boosting interconnectivity inside the data centres. One way to impart congruence among disparate vendor platforms is to embrace API-integrated networking technologies,” he added.

Market to see US$94 billion by 2027

Data centres were unnoticeable; however, lately, with the growing global reliance on cloud computing, 5G, AI, and IoT technologies, they have taken on increasingly important roles across industries, expressed Hwa Choo Lim, VP of Human Resources at Equinix Asia-Pacific. 

She added, “Specifically, data centres are rapidly growing in Asia-Pacific as governments are digitising their economies and businesses by fast-tracking their digital journeys. Data centre investments in the region grew by around 35 per cent in 2021 compared to 2020, and the market is expected to reach US$94 billion by 2027. As data centres take up their critical role in upholding the digital economy, it has been an exciting and rewarding place to develop a career. At the same time, data centre staff requirements are forecasted to grow globally from about 2 million full-time employees in 2019 to nearly 2.3 million by 2025. Most demand is expected in the Asia-Pacific region, North America, Europe, the Middle East, and Africa. Thanks to the fast-growing demands for data centre services and staff, the industry needs more skilled professionals to staff and maintain facilities.”

Data centres are now more visible on the map, thanks to the evolution in the way technology is being utilised and spread across the industry.  As Lim commented, the market will soar high in the coming years. This International Data Centre Day is placed just right to increase awareness around the industry and the roles it carries within its confines.