Advancing technology crams smaller and smaller transistors into smaller and smaller chips that goes into our handheld devices but the real force transforming the world we live in now happens in huge data centers which can been seen from space. Demand for computing power and connectivity will only grow and data centers are scaling up with it.
Scott Fulton III expounds on the transforming effect of hyperscale data centers in ZDnet:
A hyperscale data center is less like a warehouse and more like a distribution hub, or what the retail side of Amazon would call a “fulfillment center.” Although today these facilities are very large, and are operated by very large service providers, hyperscale is actually not about largeness, but rather scalability.
Imagine for a moment a factory where every component involved in the manufacture of a product, including the conveyor that brings the parts onto the assembly line, were modularized into a small area. You read this correctly: a small area. Now imagine the functionality of this module becoming so efficient and so reliable that you could grow your yield exponentially simply by connecting more of these modules together in a linear row. Or a farm where, if you double your acreage, you more than double your yield.
Hyperscale is automation applied to an industry that was supposed to be about automation to begin with. It is about organizations that happen to be large, seizing the day and taking control of all aspects of their production. But it is also about the dissemination of hyperscale practices throughout all data center buildings — not just the eBays and Amazons of the world, but the smaller players, the little guys, the folks down the street. You know to whom I’m referring: pharmaceutical companies, financial services companies, and telecommunications providers.
One vendor in the data center equipment space recently called hyperscale “too big for most minds to envision.” Scalability has always been about creating opportunities to do small things using resources that happen to encompass a very large scale.
