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Deprecating the Datacenter?

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the only-a-matter-of-time dept.

m0smithslash writes "The blogging CEO asserts that that datacenters are doomed. Computers are showing up in everything from drill bits, to cargo ships to tracking devices in stuffed animals at Disneyland. With computers becoming so small and easy to distribute over a wireless network, do we really need data centers to house computers or are the computers going to be placed where they are really needed?"

29 of 367 comments (clear)

  1. Missing info by nizo · · Score: 5, Funny

    How many drill bits will I need to buy for the company toolbox to run our email service? And does anyone know where I can get a toolbox with redundant power and cooling? Thanks.

    --
    I Am My Own Worst Enemy
    1. Re:Missing info by Thansal · · Score: 3, Informative

      First post says it all.

      Data centers are there for the things you CAN'T run on-site.

      Yes, you could set up your own data center in your building, but there is a point where it is cheaper just to use a Data Center.

      --
      Do Or Do Not, There Is No Spoon, There Is Only Zuul. Everything in the above post is probably opinion.
    2. Re:Missing info by CastrTroy · · Score: 3, Interesting

      It's like the myth that computers will create a paperless society. Computers just help us create more stuff to put on the paper. Sure you could bring a computer with you everywhere, and distribute everything on the internet, so we wouldn't need to use paper. It sounds like a nice idea, but in reality, it never ends up happening that way.

      --

      Anthropic principle: We see the universe the way it is because if it were different we would not be here to see it.
    3. Re:Missing info by MrAnnoyanceToYou · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Um.

      Ever heard of a NOC? The reason this guy's wrong has nothing to do with computing power, it's got to do with security.

      If you RTFA carefully, he's not talking about removing network operations or centralized communications and data spots. He's talking about downgrading datacenters to the level of a fusebox. The fusebox for a house is in one place, but it's in the garage. The datacenter will be in one place, but not the center of downtown.

      One could say that this has already happened quite often with IT outsourcing. You don't have a server farm just about anyone could run located in downtown Manhatten. You have it in Hyderabad or Mumbai or some rural spot in central China. Until the forces of market equalization pan out in ten or a hundred years.

      The assumptions I disagree with here are:
      1. There will never be the requirement for high-end enough services that the regular 'datacenter' with shiny equipment won't be an excessively useful sales tool.
      2. Uptime requires little enough on-site time for the people who really know what they're doing to be far enough away from the servers that they can be located in the middle of nowhere. (This is debatable today. Five years, well, it won't be debatable, it will be a fact that they require this little onsite time.)
      3. Off-Siting is easy enough to implement organizationally while retaining flexibility. This is going to be especially true for small companies.

      Other than that, though, the skills required for good operations center management are not going to be as available in the middle of nowhere as they are in cities for quite a while yet. The real problem is that the people that are willing to learn enough about the stuff are (and this is a broad and unqualified generalization) generally attracted to cities for the availability of stimulation / excess input.

      --
      My little site.
    4. Re:Missing info by Duhavid · · Score: 3, Funny

      No, the datacenter will be alive and well, here is why.

      Chips are running faster and faster and hotter and hotter.

      Right now, there is not enough heat to produce steam. Soon there
      will be.

      Soon, we will be using the heat of the chips to produce steam to
      generate electricity to produce part of the electricity to run
      the datacenter.

      This will only work well when the equipment density is high,
      therefore, we will continue to have datacenters.

      --
      emt 377 emt 4
  2. Uh by Skynet · · Score: 3, Funny

    So where are they going to put the WoW servers?

    --
    Execute? [Y/N] _
    1. Re:Uh by SuperStretch · · Score: 3, Funny

      Duh! In the drill!

      --
      Help me get a new laptop - http://nocreditcard.yourgiftsfree.com/?id=3012
    2. Re:Uh by jdray · · Score: 4, Funny

      How boring is that?

      --
      The Spoon
      Updated 6/28/2011
    3. Re:Uh by drinkypoo · · Score: 4, Funny

      Your comment is both insightful and penetrating.

      --
      "You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
  3. Huh? by yagu · · Score: 4, Insightful

    With more and more embedded computers, and easier and faster networks, datacenters could become more important than ever. Many trends today require expanding and larger datacenters -- how do you think Web 2.0 applications manage their data.

    I wouldn't find it terribly surprising to find things like drill bits and their "computers" relaying performance data which eventually ends up in some manufacturers datacenter. What better way to determine the use, reliability, and performance of a product?

    I also could imagine the information in datacenters spawning meta-datacenters where data mining and other analysis is performed.

    Distributed computers and distributed computing are different animals. Datacenters will go away much like the disappearance of the world of mainframes (which, btw, was predicted and discussed as early as 1983 (by my experience)).

    1. Re: Huh? by kfg · · Score: 5, Insightful

      With more and more embedded computers, and easier and faster networks, datacenters could become more important than ever.

      Bingo! Just as with more and more books being more widely distributed the need for public libraries as a central repository grows, not shrinks.

      Now the fact is that most datacenters, as they are spoke, are almost literal clusterfucks, but it is most often because the data technology clueless CEOs make decisions about issues they know nothing about. Even relying on the technologists no longer works in most cases, because most of the technologists are now "trained" at the bequest of . . .CEOs, who belittle "theory" in favor of "pragmatism."

      So how clueless is this particular CEO? Let us examine the record:

      ". . .the feature most requested by buyers in their fastest growing geography (India) was an LED flashlight. Edison would never have guessed (obviously). Nor that electricity would one day be on airplanes, lunar landers or deep sea submarines. "

      The fuck he wouldn't have. Edison made flashlight bulbs, batteries and portable generators: a novel was published (perhaps you've heard of it) in 1870, when Edison was only 23 years old, that had an electric submarine as its primary subject. Edison built submarine engines and electric generators for WWI. The First Men in the Moon was published in 1901, the protagonists relaying their situation back to Earth by radio; and it became a commerical movie, using Edison technology, in 1919, more than a decade before Edison's death.

      Good Lord, Edison not only guessed these things, he was instrumental in making them happen. That's why we know his name.

      I don't care what company Schwartz is the CEO of (how are they doing, by the way?), he's either clueless, selling something . . .or both.

      KFG

  4. More then Ever. by jellomizer · · Score: 3, Informative

    With more and more small clients communicating wirelessly you really need a datacenter to keep things organized, as well as backed up. So we have lost a Disney Stuffed animal, now we need to find its last location. With it communicating with a data center until it lost communication we can check the datacenter and see were it was last, and then we can check out the last spot and see that it has A. Broke down and still there or B. gone but there is a rouge kid dissecting Mickey's head. C Gone for ever. But now we know that it is gone and we record that it has been stolen and adjust the inventory accordingly. Without the datacenter we see that the mouse is gone but with no central data location finding the data is much more complex. Also in a normal business model it is easier for programmers and the business to connect to a single Database server (Or clustered but they are logically in the same place) vs. having hundreds of separate excel or access files, in which when a program needs the data it needs to hunt for the file and if the persons computer crashes chances are that it hasn't been backed up. Just Peer to Peer communication is a not a robust method because it looses a central point of administration leading to problems in the future.

    --
    If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
  5. He's right! by rlp · · Score: 5, Funny

    As long as you're not concerned about minor issues like physical security, data and communications security, maintainability, scalability, and availability.

    --
    [Insert pithy quote here]
  6. Security by QuietLagoon · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Security requires control and restriction of physical access. Unless and until you can secure those drill bits, security will always be an issue.

  7. Simplistic answer by The-Bus · · Score: 4, Insightful

    No, data centers aren't doomed. They are only doomed if they fail to see this change and don't adapt to it. Sure, the types of data centers we saw 10 or 20 years ago may be rare relics in 2020; that doesn't mean data center businesses will be gone. Current centers need to focus on security, ease of storage, or whatever else is important to their customers. These values will go beyond the spec sheet of what type of servers you have. In two years or in ten years, the servers and technology will be different. The value you provide, hopefully, will not.

    --

    Small potatoes make the steak look bigger.

  8. Comment removed by account_deleted · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Comment removed based on user account deletion

  9. Wireless computer distribution? by SoTuA · · Score: 3, Funny
    With computers becoming so small and easy to distribute over a wireless network


    I'd love to see how.
  10. Exact opposite by wamatt · · Score: 4, Interesting

    From what I've seen in the datacenter sector is growly rapidly. More and more data is being stored online in server farms. Online apps are more prevalent than ever (eg Gmail).

    With ever increasing network capacity data storage on the PC will become redundant.

  11. Unintelligent Article by detain · · Score: 3, Insightful

    This has got to be one of the lamest and most uninformed articles Ive read reacently. We have datacenters because no normal person or small business can afford things like huge internet connections from multiple providers, or afford to have network administrators and noc monkeys watching over the systems 24/7, or the expensive routing equipment used. While there is much more to a datacenter my point is already made so i dont need to delve into other reasons we need datacenters.

    --
    http://interserver.net/
  12. Central power generation is doomed... by Dr.+Zowie · · Score: 4, Insightful

    ... with internal combustion engines so small and easy to implement, they're showing up in personal vehicles and even handheld devices like weed-whackers. There's no reason to build all that infrastructure of central powerplants any more -- anyone who wants electricity can just run a small motor to generate it locally.

    Come on, get real folks.

  13. Paper is for old people by brunes69 · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Seriously - I am 26, and I use a pen to write something on paper perhaps once every 3-4 days. I also use the printer at my office or home maybe once every 3 weeks at the most.

    Any time I have to do something over the phone or by mail, that I know as a programmer I could be easily be doing online, it pisses me off to no end.

    I know I am not in an uncommon age group either. As I see my nieces and nephews go through school, they use less and less books. They hand in their assignments in USB keys.

    The only people I know of who use paper in any amount are people who are 40+, the type of people who like to print off any website longer than a page because "it is easier to read". How is reading paper easier on the eyes than reading a TFT LCD? Answer? it isn't - it's all psycological.

    The whole "myth" of the paperless world is not a myth, it was just misconstrued - you can't create a paperless world until all the people who are used to using the paper everyday are gone.

    1. Re:Paper is for old people by avalys · · Score: 3, Informative

      " How is reading paper easier on the eyes than reading a TFT LCD? Answer? it isn't - it's all psycological."

      Are you kidding? I'm all for getting rid of paper, but at the moment, it has better contrast and better resolution than even the most high-end LCD screens.

      --
      This space intentionally left blank.
    2. Re:Paper is for old people by patrixmyth · · Score: 4, Insightful

      I'm a few years from your 40+ old cut-off, but I still want to speak up and disagree with you. If you've bought a car or a house, joined a gym, graduated from college or been married, then you should be well aware of the importance of physical representations of data. It's great to be able to look up facts on wikipedia, but do I trust my military records to the digital archive? No. Is that because of my age? No. It's because of my experience. My parents have albums that they no longer can listen to, because they don't own a record player. I have lost touch with friends for months at a time when my cell phone died and took their numbers with it. I have gone to a store to show them a cancelled check that their computer system claimed they never cashed (after my bank's dispute resolution process had sided with them.) I can keep going with examples, some of them from wartime experience where 3 guys standing around a six year old map have saved hundreds of lives. Historians are studying written documents that are thousands of years old. We will only be a paperless (or vellumless, parchment, etc) society when a more reliable form of data storage is available. That day is a LONG WAY off.

      --
      "Don't you know you're going to shock the monkey?"- Peter Gabriel
    3. Re:Paper is for old people by phil+reed · · Score: 4, Insightful
      How is reading paper easier on the eyes than reading a TFT LCD?
      Depends. Is the power on?
      --

      ...phil
      "For a list of the ways which technology has failed to improve our quality of life, press 3."
    4. Re:Paper is for old people by merreborn · · Score: 3, Interesting

      Anyone who's done any serious research into long term archival media will tell you the same thing. If you want access to your records 100 years from now, put them down on acid-free paper, and store them in a controlled environment. CDs, hard drives, floppies -- all crap, in the long run.

      However, paper currently serves many purposes other than archival. There's no need for the phone company to send me a bill every month, for example. I can take care of it over the phone and/or internet; and I do. And us young folks are looking to eliminate *that* paper.

      For archives and books, paper's still the way to go.

  14. Ironic by databank · · Score: 4, Insightful

    It's ironic that a CEO would have issues with considering a datacenter that is designed for centralization and management considered to be anachronistic. A datacenter will always be needed for centralization and management.

    Hey, while we're at it, what do we need a CEO for? Overall intelligence has gone up over the years. I'm sure we're going to evolve to the point that we won't need a CEO anymore. After all, any one of us can do the job just as effectively, right? Let's hear it for true distributed management!

  15. APPS run locally. Data? On the network. by Ahnteis · · Score: 3, Insightful

    I think we'll see a lot of network-based applications. However, the data has to reside somewhere central, otherwise you're gonna have to replicate it a lot.

    I think that as network availability and bandwidth increase we'll see larger computing centers with smaller (physically) and more ubiquitous clients.

    No need for datacenter to go away -- just change a bit.

  16. Paper's for the thoughtless and lazy. by Kadin2048 · · Score: 4, Insightful

    I agree, but I think at least right now, for every person who's like us, there's some asshole out there who insists on printing out 60+ pages of single-sided PowerPoint slides and distributing them to everyone in the audience at their presentation, because it's "the thing to do." Sure, 90% of them end up in the trash near the door within five minutes of the end, but they do it anyway. Somebody might want them, right? (And this is in an office where everyone -- down to the last clerk and secretary -- has a computer and an email address, and where the presenter probably sent the meeting invite via email and thus has the entire distribution list already.)

    Computers made it easier to use up paper thoughtlessly. While going to the Xerox machine and photocopying a 100 page document at least requires you to stand there while it prints, you can print a 100-page Word document pretty much by accident. I know people that make a point of just printing entire 40+ page specification drafts when they only need a page or two, because "it's faster to just print it and pull the pages out later than figure out which I want." There no way they would be that cavalier about it, if printing required more than a "Control-P, Enter", and then picking up the sheaf of output the next time they're headed out to the water cooler.

    People aren't logical. People are dumb. People are thoughtless. Computers make being thoughtless easier. When you make something wasteful easier, it happens more often.

    --
    "Ladies and gentlemen, my killbot features Lotus Notes and a machine gun. It is the finest available."
  17. Corporate control of data by Mr+Krinkle · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Hmm
    After reading the blog, I'm not really following his theories.
    His networked drill bits, are sensors at the tip of HUGE deep sea oil rigs. That's not my happy 24 volt cordless drill. It's financially sound to stick a few thousand dollars of sensors on the end of something that can make you millions.

    As for data centers going away? It sounds more like he's saying the large hoards of mainframe operators are going away?
    True. Most of them have. Or have been centralized into ginormous data centers hosting boxes for tons of companies. (IBM's huge computer rooms come to mind. I know there are quite a few companies in the one I have to go to regularly)

    But as for getting rid of centralized servers?
    Insane. Thanks to SOX (bleh *#@(#(*@# etc etc) IT groups are being hit with requirements to control more and more data. We need to keep stricter tabs on everything. NOT farm more and more of the computing out. With things like the DAV laptops getting stolen, there should be a push for MORE centralized servers/file storage and FORCE the users to keep all the data up on controlled servers. I KNOW that my servers, inside of my network, behind my firewalls, etc etc are safer than Jimmy the sales guys laptop that he forgot sitting on the table at Starbucks for the 100th time. (Or the nifty Irish pub that has free wifi. But they're pretty good about remembering you and holding your lappie for you. :) )
    About all the data I keep on my local laptop is a contact list of phone numbers, and a pst file. My email might be amusing to someone? But if they REALLY want to see the 32423423423 backup notifications and all trouble ticket notifications, they have more free time than I have. :)

    In summary, if the guy is saying centralized servers/file storage is going away, he's wrong. If he's just saying the hordes of mainframe operators are going away, then yea, he's probably close to accurate. Or at least getting congregated into larger facilities where fewer people manage more boxes.

    (BTW sorry for the completely incoherent path this took, to much allergy medicine)

    --
    I am 31337 or something.