Most of the work that goes on in a data center is tedious, complex, and repetitive. Some of the tasks they perform there are, for example, capacity planning, resizing virtual machine and container environments or ensuring that resources are used efficiently to avoid "cloud wastage" both for companies that they supply it as for their consumers. On the other hand, they are tasks in which fewer and fewer professionals are specialized. The lack of digital talent that exists in other areas of computing is also present in this one.
However, a Gartner report points out what will be (already is) the solution to this problem: the use of advanced robots with artificial intelligence and machine learning capabilities to address the work involved in managing these cloud data centers. The consultant's expectations are that by 2025 half of these cloud centers will have this type of robot deployed, which will lead to a 30% increase in their operational efficiency.
For Sid Nag, Gartner's vice president of research, it's clear that the gap between the growing volumes of servers and storage in data centers and the number of jobs capable of handling them all is widening. “The risk of doing nothing to fix these deficiencies is significant for companies,” he warns.
The expert believes that data center operations will only increase in complexity as organizations move more diverse workloads to the cloud and the latter becomes the platform for combinatorial use of additional technologies, such as edge computing and 5G. “Data centers are an ideal sector to pair robots and AI to offer a safer, more precise and efficient environment that requires much less human intervention”, concludes the expert.
Data center tasks where the use of AI will impact the most
Specifically, Gartner mentions four areas where robots will have the greatest impact on data center automation in the next five years. The first covers updates and maintenance of servers. "Once the servers are removed, the task of dismantling and destroying the drives can be performed more quickly and efficiently by industrial robots than by humans," the analytics firm explains, adding that this is especially true for companies doing massive upgrades. frequently, for example, any cloud provider.
The second area of impact is supervision. “Robot sensor probes provide much more granular data on server rack temperatures without the need to install any invasive physical hardware. The robots used for remote monitoring can also be used to collect other data, such as sound and images to detect any irregularities, ”they say from Gartner.
Data center security is another area of high impact. “Maintaining a digitally and physically secure data center facility is a top priority for all data center companies. The robots are capable of providing a layer of physical security through a range of different capabilities, including checking human temperatures via heat sensors or license plate recognition for parking facilities.
Finally, the last area of impact will be the very use of artificial intelligence and machine learning in cloud operations. "Together with robots, modern technology enabled by artificial intelligence and machine learning allows the supervision and management of IT processes in the data center," reads a company study. “Users of this technology, such as the center's reliability engineers, are able to interact and communicate with the platform in question through natural language. These platforms are capable of learning from past situations to improve efficiency in future cases”, he adds.
In short, in the words of Nag, “while sectors such as the automotive and manufacturing sectors have taken advantage of the use of robots, the world of the data center has ignored it. IT managers can drive intelligent automation of cloud data center operations and processes to create key differentiators for their businesses, such as increasing uptime and meeting service level agreements for their offerings. in the cloud, which will become more reality thanks to the use of robots”.