Rack Scale Design: “Data-Center-in-a-Box”

The “data-center-in-a-box” concept is becoming a reality as data center operators look for explanations that are easily replicated, scaled and deployed following a just-in-time methodology.

Rack scale design is a modular, efficient design approach that supports this yearning for easier-to-manage compute and storage solutions.

What is Rack Scale Design?

Rack scale design solutions serve as the building blocks of a new data center methodology that incorporates a software-defined, hyper-converged management system within a concentrated, single rack solution. In essence, rack scale design is a design approach that supports hyper-convergence.

Rack scale design is changing the data center environment. Read on to discover how the progress to a hyper-converged, software-defined environment came about; its pros and cons; the effects on the data center infrastructure; and where rack scale design solutions are headed.

What is Hyper-Convergence?

Two years ago, the term “hyper-convergence” meant nothing in our industry. By 2019, however, hyper-convergence is expected to be a $5 billion market.

Offering a centralized approach to organizing data center infrastructure, hyper-convergence can collapse compute, storage, virtualization and networking into one SKU, adding a software-defined layer to manage data, software and physical infrastructure. Based on software and/or appliances, or supplied with commodity-based servers, hyper-convergence places compute, storage and networking into one package or “physical container” to create a virtualized data center.

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