Milos Stojkovic, ENEL PS – Development of modern solutions brought us efficient Data Centers

(Milos Stojkovic) At the time when the development of technology is so fast and data privacy very jeopardized, the establishment of an efficient Data Center is something each company should strive for. As Milos Stojkovic of ENEL PS, a company which has been designing, building, equipping and maintaining Data Centers for a very long time, says for eKapija, in a modern company (facilities, infrastructure...) it is the ICT that is the most sensitive part, including data, apps, software and hardware.

– Data Centers (DC) are evolving, following the progress of ICT hardware, so the rules of good practice from ten years ago no longer apply. Modern solutions, the development of which is dictated by the largest brands of this industry, enable the current DCs to be much more efficient, with powering and cooling with minimal energy dispersion.

eKapija: How prepared are companies to invest in such infrastructure today? Are they aware of the importance of safe information storage?

– Constant innovations in the digital sphere force companies to invest in ICT infrastructure and to raise the level of data reliability and safety. Digitization has led to a dramatic increase in the amount of data being processed and stored, and companies need to be prepared for it. The imperative of reliability is larger than before, and IoT and 5G technologies will raise that demand even higher.

eKapija: What are the problems and challenges that companies, but also you and your colleagues, as experts and consultants, face in establishing Data Centers?

– Designers specialized for such systems can best respond to the current trends, prepare a suitable project task and carry out the designing, enabling a modern and efficient DC.

The biggest challenge for the company is how to pick an adequate space for a DC. They usually pick side premises, which don't meet flooding or fire requirements and other requirements. It's not an easy task fitting in with the fire requirements, and there's often no room for the necessary installations. Pre-fabricated DCs of container type are an elegant solution in such situations.

Another great challenge is to define the client's needs – the capacity of the equipment to be put into the DC. The investor usually doesn't know how much capacity they need, nor do they have a plan for further expansion in the future.

eKapija: You often point out that a proper functioning of Data Centers requires energy efficiency as well. How is it best achieved?

– Observing the news from the so-called big five (Google, Microsoft, Facebook, Amazon, Apple), it is apparent that energy and water consumption are the most important parameters in building a DC. Announcements of all-time low values of the PUE (Power Usage Effectiveness) index of the order of magnitude of 1.1 or less can be found.

Today, modern DCs use generated heat in IT equipment for heating facilities or other similar purposes. A medium-sized DC (100 kW) can heat a facility of 2,000 m2 of office space on its own.

eKapija: The construction of the State Data Center in Kragujevac has started. How important will this project be for our country?

– The state DC is very important for the entire public sector in Serbia. It will be a part of the whole DC eco-system, including Edge and Cloud apps. Data safety will be very important in this case, as the users will be sensitive institutions.

eKapija: What is Edge computing?

– Edge computing or Edge DC is a solution which enables data processing very near the source of the data. Digital transformation and generation of a huge amount of data in a single location is the trigger for the Edge DC phenomenon. There used to be a centralized mainframe where all the data were processed, and now this data processing is being decentralized through Edge, which complements collocation or cloud Data Centers.

Edge DC is characteristic for having no staff, that is, there needs to be remote control from a remote location. It is best delivered as a prefabricated and pretested infrastructure, of the so-called self-contained type.

ENEL PS d.o.o. Beograd

Google

Microsoft

Facebook

Amazon

Apple

Miloš Stojković

Data Centers

Power Usage Effectiveness

apps

software

hardware

ICT

IT technologies

flooding protection

fire protection

Edge DC

Edge computing

cloud