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Ciscos head of data centres for UK&I discusses data centre evolution and the transformation of the digital core.

Cisco is more well-placed than most to chart the evolution of networking. The giant of networking first burst onto the scene in 1984, launching the now humble router to revolutionise the networking world.

From those humble beginnings in routers, the networking giant today boasts full portfolios in all of the major market segments IoT, Cloud, IT and more. Sitting at the core of todays networking is the powerhouse that is the data centre a key piece of IT infrastructure which Cisco has seen, and helped, evolve.

Data centres of old, born from huge computer rooms, were comprised of early computer systems systems which were complex to maintain and needing a special environment in which to operate. The 1980s internet boom saw computers spring up everywhere and, coupled with the rise of Unix and Linux-compatible PC operating systems, saw the term data centre enter the colloquial language of nearly every big IT department.

However, the data centre of today is an entirely different beast;

Data centres are not just big bricks building, it can be that but its also evolving and I would talk about it more as a digital core which is kind of moving away from that physical entity data centre, Joachim Mason, Head of Data centres at Cisco UK&I, told CBR.

Digital core can be everything that you need from network, compute, storage, software and cloud which is all part of what youre doing to deliver applications and data for customers today.

Indeed, this may be the latest linguistic evolution of the data centre. The dot-com bubble saw the rise of the Internet data centre, then we had the cloud data centre, with each variation of the data centre term becoming more and more blurred until we reached todays ubiquitous data centre.

This latest iteration of the data centre, or digital core as Mr Mason calls it, also calls upon the organisation operating the data centre to evolve, with Cisco a case in point. Where once the networking giant was focussed on hardware, todays customers have different demands.

Its a constantly evolving thing and as technology has changed, so too has the mix of technology changed and what they are actually doing for people changes, said Mr Mason.

Things are evolving and changing and Cisco evolves and changes as we need to. Fundamentally what were most concerned with is solving the problems that our customers have which are technology based, so as their demands grow and their amount of data is growing they need an IT and data centre environment that can scale to fit with that and also be agile enough to be flexible with the demands.

Customer demand is driven by the IT buzzwords of today Cloud, Internet of Things, Big Data and Security. Each area is complex take the IoT for example. Gartner forecasts that 8.4 billion connected things will be in use across the world in 2017. That is a staggering 31% increase on 2016 numbers and nearly half way to the research firms 20.4 billion connected things forecast for 2020.

The old way of processing the data would see the backhauling of a data feed to a data centre, then pushing the processed data back out to the edge platform. However this way of processing comes up short when you take into account how important speed is for todays business. This has given rise to intelligence at the edge, which pushes the processing as close as possible to the source. This is just one way which data centre demand, network demand, has changed. Another area is security;

Where do you need security on your networks, as it is a thing that touches absolutely everything. It has a role as a platform, as an enforcer, as a sensor in security space and it also has the role of delivering applications and services out to all. So whether youre in front of a laptop or walking around outside, its the network thats giving you [security].

Cloud, big data, IoT all the buzzwords merge in working towards one common goal in the enterprise, Digital transformation. Digital is changing everything, as the UK data centre chief told CBR:

The term digitisation for one is used widely, its real and its happening leading to a lot of change for all industries including our own, so with that youre talking about changing processes mentally, making them more digital and agile in response to being intuitive.

It used to be that the only thing that happened during IT happened in IT organisations and its now at a point where were all much more savvy with technology than we were 10-20 years ago so we can access it from wherever we like without having to seek permission from someone.

This, for Cisco has changed the networking, and data centre, game. The focus now is keeping customers switched on, providing visibility, quick and easy deployment and always-on availability.

The software front end is what customers care about and what they need is for it to be there and connected quick, intuitive and all those things. The minute its not there the whole thing kind of goes to port so thats what we fundamentally care about.

As case in point, Cisco started the year with a new Tetration Analytics offering to deliver various deployment options. For instance, Ciscos ASAP (Analyse, Simplify, Automate and Protect) data centre gives organisations the ability to modernise their data centre and IT infrastructure with a hybrid IT solution.

It enables organisations to gain complete visibility across everything in the data centre in real time. This being part of its aim to also deliver a 100 percent customer visibility offering for network and software-defined network solutions.

Mason said: The delivery of applications will come from different places, so it might come from quite a traditional start with major players like SAP, Oracle and Microsoft that weve all grown up with in the industry and are built on a fairly traditional landscape

Whereas new sorts of applications, web scale and cloud native are kind of built and developed architecture in a different way, scaled in a different way and theres lots of applications that you can use on your phone that have kind of become common practice and natural for you to use. The reality is youve got to find a balance to how you deliver to customers.

Increasing amounts of data combined with a cloud-first approach for many organisations continues to further the evolution of the data centre. As some data centre providers sell up and get out of the business, the likes of Cisco continue to thrive due to its ability to embrace change.

While new technologies and the IT buzzwords will tend to steal the headlines, it is the sometimes unattractive infrastructure piece that makes all of this possible. As new technologies come along itll require continued agility from tech giants like Cisco to evolve the data centre, or digital core, powering future business.

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The evolution of the data centre according to Cisco - Computer Business Review