Developments in Cloud Data Center Technology (English)

Tyler Kern (00:01): 

Welcome to Connected World, a podcast created for engineers to learn about the latest technology trends, creating a safer, sustainable, productive, and connected future. 

Tyler Kern (00:15): 

Hello and welcome to Connected World, a podcast from TE Connectivity. I'm your host today. Tyler Kern. Thanks so much for joining me for this episode of the program. Now on this episode, we're discussing changing trends and developments within cloud data centers with Nathan Tracy. He's the manager of industry standards for the data and devices unit at TE Connectivity. Nathan, thanks so much for joining me. 

Nathan Tracy (00:39): 

All right, you're welcome. Thanks a lot for having me here today, Tyler. 

Tyler Kern (00:43): 

Well, I'm, I'm excited to dive into this topic and I think that there's so many avenues that we can explore in this area, but I want you to kick us off with some of the major trends and developments that you've seen in the world of data centers in recent months and maybe over the past year or so. 

Nathan Tracy (00:56): 

Yeah, so Tyler, we're directly involved in helping or enabling the data centers or the cloud to go faster and to meet the evolving needs as our technology changes, and technology changes in the cloud. But to your question, the key thing is that their demand on their capabilities is just going through the roof. So whether we're talking about a cloud operator who's focused on the search function, or the social media, or the commerce, and many of them dabble in all of these different realms, as well as outsourcing and hosting web services for various companies and various organizations. It just is creating this tsunami of data that's moving on to the cloud and they have to try and support that. Just to give you a few different statistics, over the last 10 years, we've seen the typical switching unit of measure that we look at from the standpoint of the networking in the cloud is 10 years ago it was 640 gigabits per second. And now today, we're in the 25 terabit generation. And within a short time, a couple of years from now, we'll be talking about 51 terabytes. 

Nathan Tracy (02:25): 

So just a huge increase in terms of the traffic that they're dealing with, and some of the things that drive that, so the number of connections that are made to the cloud are increasing much faster than the population. So they're increasing at a 10% compound growth rate. And the number of users that are connecting are increasing at a 6% compound annual growth rate. And then the types of connections are changing too. You would think the connection is on your home PC, but now think about all the other things that we're doing with video and with our cell phones. And now, machine to machine connections are growing to become a huge percentage of the demand. And by about the 2023 timeframe, we expect that machine to machine will be upwards of 50% of all the connections into the internet. So it's not just the fact that we want to watch on demand video, but the types of connections that we are expecting to be able to go to the cloud for are changing. 

Nathan Tracy (03:44): 

Take for example, video. So we all know that video is a huge driver of cloud traffic, but let's think about how video technologies have changed over the years. So standard definition TV, that's what we all watched a few years ago. And then we went to HDTV, which is four times the bit rate of standard definition TV. And now the next thing is 4K, which is double the bit rate of HDTV. So just the fact that we're watching video is driving traffic, but the nature of the video is changing as well over the period of time. 

Nathan Tracy (04:26): 

And so it's just creating this huge demand into the cloud, things like wifi, there's more wifi hotspots, there's more mobile devices on those hotspots. And the data rate that those hotspots can support is increasing. So it just adds onto the demand. And then 5G cellular networks that are coming into the use case now. For example, when 2G cellular technology was rolled out, it took 14 quarters for it to get it as high as 17.8 million connections. Give you a more recent data point, 4G technology. The one that we all, the mass society uses today, it took them 10 quarters to get to 7.8 million connections. But with 5G, four quarters is all it's taken to get to that same 17.8 million connections. So everything is just driving tremendous pressure and growth expectations onto the cloud operators. 

Tyler Kern (05:44): 

That being said, I wonder, are the circumstances of the past year, Coronavirus and students doing school from home, parents working from home, all of these different things, could we look at that as a pretty major stress test for cloud data centers and what it's able to withstand? 

Nathan Tracy (06:08): 

Yeah. So I liked the way you asked that question, because no one planned for this. So this truly is a stress test. No one said, "Hey, we're going to have everybody stop coming to work next year or last year" or pick your timeframe. And so, yes, absolutely. This has been a tremendous stress test, and the network has held up well, but at the same time that we've seen the network go under this tremendous stress test. Now, we know that there's new applications, and I listed a lot of those new applications that are going to continue to drive demand on top of the fact that folks are working from home more now, and they may continue to work from home to a much larger degree than in the past. And so, yeah, this has been a really exciting stress test. I say tense for some of the network operators, but it just keeps us on our toes in terms of what's the timeline, what's the roadmap, when do we need to be ready to enable the next steps in the network evolution? 

Tyler Kern (07:16): 

So I suppose the thing that everybody wants to be able to do is to do more and for it all to go faster, right? So what sorts of bottlenecks exist that right now kind of keep that from being a reality for everyone? What sorts of things are out there that people should know about? 

Nathan Tracy (07:33): 

Yeah. So I mentioned some of the data rates earlier on, the changes that we've seen over time, but it's not just about the data rate. So data rate is descriptor that's easy for us to provide, whether we're talking about gigabits per second or terabits per second, but when we do increase those data rates, we run into the laws of physics. The loss increases as we increase the data rate. And there's certain things that we can do to mitigate that, but we can't totally eliminate it. So when we talk about the loss increasing, so that decreases the distance that we can send a signal at a higher data rate. So then you have to worry about, okay, so how can we overcome that? Well, we can change some of the modulation schemes that we use. And so when we do that, then we have to optimize our product to our connectivity solutions for those different modulation formats. As you go to higher data rates, you dissipate more power. 

Nathan Tracy (08:43): 

So now, the power demand into the data center is increasing. We need to find power solutions to allow them to bring more power into the data center and distribute it through the data center. And of course, if they're consuming more power, then they're dissipating more power. So now we have thermal problems, and they have to figure out how to operate that network in that environment. So how can we help the network operators to maximize the thermal dissipation from the network elements that they're operating? And so it's a whole combination of things we're dealing with reach challenges. We're changing modulations, we have to deliver more power. We have to help with the thermal mitigation better. And at the same time, it's just this constant march to higher data rates. So it's just a whole symphony of things coming together. Symphony sounds like a good thing. These are all challenges or barriers that all have to be overcome. 

Tyler Kern (09:46): 

That's really interesting. So, given your expertise and your experience in these areas, what insights can you provide, and how can you help the data centers manage their power consumption? It seems like that's something that's hard to get around. So what solutions exist to help data centers in this regard? 

Nathan Tracy (10:06): 

Yeah, so in some applications, data centers are looking at changing their power architecture, changing from an AC to a DC structure to optimize the power consumption and the conversion efficiencies from that. And they're operating their racks of equipment at higher power levels. And so we need to be able to deliver higher voltage and higher current solutions to them. So we do that. So we're in the connectivity business, we provide those power connectors to make sure the racks stay powered reliably and that they can deliver those higher power loads to the equipment while at the same time, making sure that everything stays safe. 

Tyler Kern (10:58): 

That's a great point. And I wonder, just one of the big mysteries for people right now is what normal looks like in a post-pandemic world. So what guidance would you give to data centers who were looking to prepare for the future? We talked about the stress test at the beginning, and like you mentioned, it was stressful because nobody knew it was coming. We couldn't make preparations or anything like that too far in advance, because all of a sudden, just a switch flipped and one day, everybody was working from home and doing school from home. And so as people look forward I think it's natural to wonder, what does life look like in a post-pandemic world? What kind of advice would you give to those data centers who are looking to try to prepare and remain, I suppose, flexible and nimble enough to adjust to different challenges and changes? 

Nathan Tracy (11:41): 

Well, as I mentioned, there are some changes happening in the internal architectures, inside the data centers, where they're looking at what are the number of tiers of networking that they have, how do they implement new technologies, such as machine learning and artificial intelligence? And what we're doing is we're developing the solutions that enable those network changes, and those technology introductions to happen. Another area is the growing presence of the cloud moving to the edge of the network, where it's closer to the end users. It allows a number of benefits when they can do that, but they need to move those new technologies like machine learning and artificial intelligence to the edge as well. And again, we're in that space providing solutions for that. In terms of the thermal management challenge, the network is now in the mode of deploying 400 gigabit ethernet as the standard data rate. With that came a significant increase in the power dissipation of the optical transceivers that they use. 

Nathan Tracy (12:54): 

And we developed thermal management solutions that enable them to keep those optics running cooler, and more reliably in that environment. And the same way copper cable solutions that are optimized for these 400 gigabit bandwidths that enable them to maximize the reach as much as can be done at this new higher data rate. And then just all of the connectivity solutions, both inside the box and outside the box that we can provide to the network operator and to the network operator's suppliers. So the folks that are making the network switches, the servers, the storage, all the machine learning devices, they're using these connectivity solutions in their networks. And so we're able to help them make that new data center of the future operate more smoothly. 

Tyler Kern (13:51): 

When we look back on this, what do you think will be the biggest lessons that data centers will learn from this particular experience at this particular time? And how will it be applied forward, do you think? 

Nathan Tracy (14:02): 

Oh that's a really hard question. Now I have to dust off my crystal ball and look to the future. So I would say that, and there's no one out there that isn't doing this anyway. So they all have roadmaps. They all have a plan. They understand where their bottlenecks are today, and where their weak links are today. And so they've got a plan, they've identified that. I think the key thing is to make sure that the whole ecosystem is synced up and aware of their plan. The industry that we're part of, we can do a great job of bringing technology that addresses those bottlenecks or those weak links, but we have to know about it. One of the things I do at TE I'm involved in a number of industry standards, and we can develop solutions in those industry standards. 

Nathan Tracy (14:55): 

We build the ecosystem that enables the industry to move forward, but we need the communication to know where those bottlenecks are and what the timeline is. And I think the pandemic has heightened the awareness of the need for that communication. Everyone needs to operate with a degree of secrecy and stealth, because it's how they differentiate themselves. But, there are ways that you can communicate to the industry and to companies like TE Connectivity so that we can be ready when you need to step forward and address that next generation industry roadmap. So I think that's the biggest thing that everyone has observed is, it works. It's amazing. The network works, we've got this resiliency and durability built into the network. Now let's keep a close eye on the future based on this scare that we're in the process of going through now. 

Tyler Kern (15:57): 

For me, putting you on the spot like that, your crystal ball did a fantastic job. And so great, great insight there from Nathan Tracy, manager of industry standards for the data in devices unit at TE Connectivity. Nathan, thank you so much for joining us here on Connected World and sharing your insights and expertise. 

Nathan Tracy (16:13): 

No problem. Thank you very much, Tyler. 

Tyler Kern (16:15): 

Absolutely. And everyone, thank you for tuning into this episode and joining us for the ride here for this particular episode of the podcast. We appreciate it very, very much. Of course, if this is your first time to listen, we have plenty of previous episodes you can go back and listen to. Episodes on topics like wifi, 5G, lots and lots of different topics covered here from the thought leaders at TE. And so you're going to want to go back and check out those insights as well, and then make sure you subscribe to stay up to date with the latest from TE, because we're constantly coming out with new podcasts and new episodes on different topics. And so you want to stay on top of those things as well. So make sure you subscribe at Apple Podcasts or Spotify to get the latest episodes right there on your phone or your computer, wherever you choose to listen. And of course, we'll be back soon with those new episodes, but until then, I've been your host today, Tyler Kern. Thanks for listening