A new survey commissioned by Kingston Technology showed due to pandemics higher data growth was generated in KSA, UAE, and Egypt in 2020 as firms changed to a remote work system.
According to the findings of a poll performed by ResearchOne Marketing Consultancy, 75 per cent of IT specialists said that their firms had switched to a work-from-home (WFH) set up last year to assist combat COVID-19 spread.
Around 67 per cent of the interviewees felt that their companies’ data growth rate in 2020 was faster than in prior years as a result of the WFH adoption. They attributed the increase to more email storage during lockdowns.
The increased data volume necessitated the development of more efficient and long-lasting online storage systems and data centre infrastructure. Bringing down energy expenses has become one of many businesses’ concerns today, causing them to accelerate their cloud migration efforts in order to boost efficiency and, in the long run, minimise their ecological imprint.
During the period, over 50% of organisations in Saudi Arabia began moving some of their processes to the cloud, while 25% of companies in the UAE and Egypt did the same.
The majority of respondents polled stated that switching to cloud services will lower cooling and storage expenses associated with managing and operating data centres.
Data centres are notorious for consuming a lot of energy. According to studies, by 2025, these facilities will account for one-fifth of global energy demand, dwarfing the power consumption of many individual countries. For countries and institutions striving for a more sustainable future, this has sounded the alarm. Businesses have begun to consider more about improving their total IT infrastructure, which includes data centres, throughout the years, notably during the pandemic.
However, other experts believe that cloud migration is not the best option for lowering data centre energy use. It’s just a different way of looking at the problem because migrating to the cloud fundamentally boils down to large servers, which necessitate yet more data centres. Making data centres eco-friendly and efficient should also be prioritised in order to achieve a meaningful energy reduction inside the IT system.
According to the study, some respondents favoured the implementation of innovative technology such as smart sensors to monitor data centre temperatures and supplement a more efficient cooling system. They also suggested using renewable energy and co-hosting servers with other local businesses to cut down on the number of data centres and the costs associated with managing them. Smaller businesses can profit from server sharing because it results in lower energy use.
A few interviewees also mentioned the importance of switching from hard-disk drives (HDDs) to high-performance flash-based solid-state drives (SSDs) to improve technology infrastructure and reduce energy usage.
Hundreds of thousands of HDDs are currently in use in numerous data centres, many of which are in constant operation, resulting in substantial energy consumption. HDD proponents frequently argue that this technology, which has been around for decades, is superior to its SSD equivalent in terms of data capacity and, hence, price-performance ratio. However, the SSD has been reducing this edge for some time.
When applied to the complete data centre, upgrading to SSD from HDD – as well as to non-volatile memory express (NVMe) from serial advanced technology attachment (SATA) – can have a substantial influence on power reduction.
Furthermore, SSDs have ten times the transfer speed of HDDs and can effortlessly switch to an energy storage mode after the read or write process is completed, whereas HDDs are more subject to wear and tear. The quick transfer speed of an NVMe PCIe SSD can minimise the period of full operation and, as a result, save electricity.
. Kingston Technology is a firm believer in forming relationships between businesses and industry specialists in order to assist the latter in actively reducing their carbon footprint. As a result, it offers its ‘Ask an Expert service to assist its partners in selecting the proper SSDs and other components that will help them enhance their operational efficiency and environmental effect in the long run.
