By: Laura Sperandeo, iMiller Public Relations

DCWG16-LogoEvery year, telecommunications industry representatives from around the globe congregate at the annual Data Center World Global event to discuss the trends and technologies affecting the state of the industry. At the March 14-18 conference in Las Vegas, I had the opportunity to listen in on the many intriguing conversations taking place when over 1,000 community professionals met to survey the future of the Internet through vendor-neutral educational sessions, panels, networking opportunities and exhibitions.

On Thursday, March 17, I attended the educational session, “Micro Cloud: The Modular Data Center Path to the IoT,” led by James Young of CommScope. This session addressed a new approach to developing purpose-built facilities suited for edge computing, broadband and wireless access networks, as well as ways to overcome the inherent risks associated with the expansion or the creation of modern data centers.

Today, we are experiencing major growth in mobility, Big Data, cloud computing and the Internet of Things (IoT) that has stretched data center capacity to its limits. Centralized data centers are no longer capable of meeting the increasing demands of end-users. According to Young, in order to satisfy the growing demand for content and bandwidth-intensive applications, it’s time to expand the network edge by designing and deploying facilities that are strategically positioned nearest to local-market consumers. By bringing content closer to end-users via edge data centers, it’s possible to improve latency, reliability and overall flexibility of data delivery outside of major cities and Tier I locations. By decreasing the proximity between data centers and end-users, fast and reliable delivery of content where and when it’s needed can become a reality, regardless of location.

This and many more critical topics were examined at Data Center World Global 2016 and the event fostered a dynamic environment where industry leaders exchanged progressive ideas and shared key insights. Data Center World Global promised attendees an opportunity for education and networking during this five-day event, and it certainly delivered.