A Suitable Infrastructure Is Critical to a Profitable IDC Business

In his paper “Operator’s Dilemma (And Opportunity): The 4th Wave,” telecom analyst Chetan Sharma says that the telecom industry has experienced three revenue waves: voice, messaging, and data services. Now operators are facing the fourth wave: over the top (OTT) services and value added services (VAS).

Operators worldwide need to consider how they will profit from the fourth wave and how they will expand their ICT services to avoid being left behind. The internet data center (IDC) is critical to expanding services and increasing profit. It should be easy to deploy, energy efficient, inexpensive, and capable of offering diverse services.

ZTE aims to help operators solve some of the problems with traditional IDCs, such as time to market, high cost, and coping with the demand for a variety of services. ZTE has introduced integrated, highly efficient IDC solutions that focus on ICT services. These solutions are modularized for quick deployment; they are inexpensive and energy efficient; and they allow for cloud-based service expansion.

Modularization for Quick Deployment

To cope with the fast growth of global data center services and the special requirements of certain application scenarios, ZTE has developed a mobile modular data center (M2DC) that integrates IT architecture with the infrastructure of a traditional IDC equipment room, which include power distribution, air conditioning, integrated wiring, and monitoring systems. The M2DC modularizes the data center.

ZTE provides class A, B and C data centers that comply with the GB50174-2008 national standard of China. ZTE also provides tier II, tier III, and tier IV data centers that comply with the TIA-942 international standard.

ZTE’s M2DC features:

• on-demand capacity expansion. Modules and other capacities, such as power and air conditioning, can be added to M2DC.
• quick deployment. M2DC can be deployed within one to three months.
• flexibility. M2DC can be used for quick-response military, disaster relief, and live broadcasting scenarios.
• safety and reliability. M2DC is often deployed in permanent buildings, so safety and reliability are guaranteed.
• modularization and standardization. All parts of M2DC, including interfaces, screws, fasteners, supports, cables, switches, power supply, and air conditioners, are modularized according to uniform standards and can be easily installed or replaced.
• high quality and cost-effectiveness. Because all parts of M2DC are modularized and standardized, they can be mass produced. Operators receive a cost-effective, quality M2DC.

Energy Saving and Low Cost

Traditional data centers consume much energy. Making the data center more environmentally friendly reduces opex, which is crucial for making profit from the data center.

ZTE’s IDC solutions lower energy consumption by taking advantage of local climate and natural resources, such as solar energy. An efficient air flow design also allows for natural air cooling.

According to the Green Grid industry group, the power usage effectiveness (PUE) for a green data center should be less than 1.6, preferably less than 1.5. Green data centers are an inevitable evolution of current data centers, which now suffer bottlenecks, and they are also required for corporate social responsibility.

A site with sufficient energy, cooling sources, transmission resources, and convenient transport should be selected. The vulnerability of the site to natural disasters should also be taken into account.

When planning and designing a green data center, the following should be considered:

• building materials. Energy efficient, environmentally friendly materials should be used in the equipment room to reduce heat conduction and protect against radiation from outside the data center.
• power density. The power density of the rack should not be less than 6 kW in order to save space and reduce maintenance area.
• power distribution system. A modularized, uninterruptible power system (UPS); high-voltage DC system; or flywheel energy storage system is recommended. These systems are highly reliable and perform much better than traditional UPSs.
• cooling system. The cooling system should have good air flow and be highly efficient.
• temperature and humidity. China’s GB50174-2008 national standard specifies that the temperature of an equipment room should range between 22˚C and 24˚C, and the relative humidity should be between 40% and 55%. In practice, a server can work in temperatures up to 40˚C and with a relative humidity of 20% to 80%. Therefore, the American ASHRAE-2010 standard can be used to expand the temperature and humidity ranges in order to reduce power consumption that results from cooling and dehumidification.
• management system. ZTE’s iSteady system can be used to manage both IT devices and infrastructure. With built-in integration policies, the system can automatically start or stop devices in the data center. This saves energy and improves efficiency.

When constructing a true green data center, designers, planners, and contractors should cooperate closely, adopt new technologies, and seek appropriate ways to save energy.

Cloud-Based Service Expansion

With the development and application of mobile terminals, almost all services, including shopping, payment, downloading, ticket booking and patient card querying, can be delivered through the cloud. All things that are closely related to our daily lives can be gradually offered through the cloud. What is needed now is a platform to embrace the fourth wave.

IDC is the basic platform needed to deliver more new services and to adapt to the fourth wave. IDC is also needed for traditional space and virtual resource renting.

ZTE’s IDC solutions integrate fundamental cloud service models, such as infrastructure as a service (IaaS), platform as a service (PaaS), and software as a service (SaaS), to meet operator demands for flexible service combining and packaging.

• IaaS

With virtualization technology, IaaS forms a resource pool by combining multiple servers and storage resources. It offers the computing resources necessary to carry service applications. It is a new way of carrying services that maximizes resource use and is energy efficient. IaaS provides computing resources quickly to meet unexpected user demand, and it is also the basis for flexible resource renting services. IaaS includes virtual machines, storages, and networks.

• PaaS

With a distributed and parallel computing algorithm, PaaS fully integrates the computing and storage capabilities of many servers to provide massive data processing capability for special applications. A highly efficient software development, application, and management platform is created to attract third-party software developers and terminal users. As a result, high-performance computing is achieved through low-cost PC server clusters, and computing capability is expanded almost linearly. PaaS includes development platforms, running environments, and databases.

• SaaS

SaaS allows software and computing operations to run at the IDC side so that users can obtain necessary software through the internet without spending much time and money constructing and maintaining their own IT infrastructure. This relieves terminals from the burden of computing and drives the growth of mobile internet services. As computing operations are transferred from terminals to data centers, the computing requirement place on terminals is lowered. SaaS includes office, information, communication, and internet applications.