What will the year 2023 bring? Here are five of the hottest trends in the field of technology and data management

Modern businesses are using and generating increasing amounts of data every year. The International Data Corporation estimates that the size of our data sphere will double in the period from 2022 to 2026. Therefore, it is justified to ask what currents carry it, how we can cope with this growth, and what it means for our businesses.

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Closer to the consumer

First, it is important to understand that data has developed a certain gravitational force. This means that the apps and digital services at the disposal of the users pull businesses closer to the consumers. This, in turn, means the fractioning of centralised data management, in the case of which a company was able to serve a large area and millions of customers from its central data center. The volumes of data keep growing and moving them over longer distances is becoming increasingly time-consuming. The patience of the customers, however, is not increasing; rather on the contrary, everything is expected to occur faster and more smoothly. It is therefore reasonable to take the servers and computing power closer to the end customer.

The situation is even more explosive due to the wider spread of 5G, which allows to move large volumes of data almost instantly within a limited radius. Therefore, more widespread decentralisation of data management may be predicted. This is, of course, a longer trend which will not reach its peak in 2023, but online businesses should already take it into consideration today.

Scattering of the infrastructure

Decentralisation is, in turn, steering businesses towards multiclouds. This means that an organisation builds its IT infrastructure based on internal as well as external needs. The operations and the supporting infrastructure are placed where they are of most use. This may mean combining a server room on the company’s premises, data centers, or a public cloud or clouds (Google Cloud, Azure, AWS, etc.), for example. Figuratively, this change may be compared to a grocery store which used to be located in the city center along with the warehouse and office. Now, the business consists of physical stores scattered all over the country, logistics centers, and an online store, as the preferences and needs of the buyers have changed.

Thereat, the infrastructure itself is constantly becoming smarter. More and more systems are automated and the machines independently learn how to manage other machines more efficiently. The data center of Greenergy Data Centers in Estonia, where the Siemens cooling system is controlled and optimised by artificial intelligence, is a good example of this.

Taking unpredictable growth into consideration

Thirdly, decentralisation will lead us to modularity. If the IT infrastructure of an organisation is divided between different solutions and places, it is not reasonable to build extensive reserves everywhere in advance. It would, however, be a good idea to leave an opportunity for a quick expansion of capacities.

Returning to the example of a grocery store, it is not necessarily feasible to build a vast logistics center in a rapidly developing area, but placing a warehouse in a larger complex where it is possible to expanded the rented premises as and when required sounds much better. In the context of data, this means preferring modular data centers, for example, which allow to quickly take up new premises with the help of standard solutions. This option is also included in the model of public clouds.

Higher demand for energy

Fourthly, innovation and technological progress must be taken into consideration. The equipment at our disposal is increasingly more capable, which is accompanied by a growing demand for electricity. Thus, no matter whether the data is stored in a data center or the company’s own server room, a limit is reached sooner or later which cannot be exceeded. In Estonia, this average usage of electricity is generally around 3 kW per equipment cabinet (which houses servers, hard discs, network devices, etc.). Newer data centers are, however, capable of much more, and there is also a practical need for this. A new generation of liquid-cooled equipment cabinets are a good example, offering much more efficient heat removal than air-cooled solutions. Such cabinets may be filled with equipment with the electricity consumption of up to 100 kW. This amount of electricity would be enough to satisfy the demand of seven or eight regular households at their peak consumption.

Newer equipment is generally also more efficient, which plays a role in complying with the various different environmental requirements applicable to companies. Thus, switching to the modern technology is inevitable in the longer perspective. It would be smart to take this into consideration when building one’s digital infrastructure to avoid running short later.

The direction towards climate neutrality

Fifthly, we reach the legislation, which is becoming stricter. The European Union has set a target for its members to reduce the emissions within the EU by at least 55% by 2030, and to achieve climate neutrality by 2050. In order to comply with this target, new pieces of legislation are being adopted, which businesses will be required to observe.

For example, large-scale companies are required to disclose their sustainability reports as part of their management reports in their annual reports of 2023, describing the environmental impacts of their business management and activities, among other things. In the context of building and managing an IT infrastructure, this means a clear direction towards proven efficiency, as the companies will be further motivated to reduce their ecological footprints to report a smaller negative environmental impact. This, in turn, increases the need for certified server rooms from the perspective of energy efficiency.

In this context, an increasing value of certificates may also be considered a wider trend, as it offers some security in the legal space which is becoming more and more complicated. An internationally acknowledged certificate opens doors and expands trust from the perspective of the ecological footprint, as well as physical and cyber security. This was also one of the main reasons why the largest data center in the Baltics undertook a long and work-intensive certification process to prove its compliance with the most stringent European standards. We have recently discussed this in a blog article.

Conclusively, we can expect an increase in the gravitational force of the data, the decentralisation of the IT infrastructure, and a preference for flexibility in the new year. Technological development and new, more powerful equipment will draw more and more attention to the electrical capacity and the increasingly stringent legislation will make companies think about certification and international standards. The need to reduce one’s ecological footprint and comply with the related reporting requirements will also bring the issues of IT infrastructure to the attention of the management board more often than before.