El DWDM es una técnica de transmisión, que realiza la multiplexación por división en longitudes de onda, es decir, que utiliza varias longitudes de onda de luz, descompuesta en colores, para enviar datos desde dos o más colores de luz que pueden viajar sobre una sola fibra óptica.

Data centers and their impact on business continuity.

July 26,2023 | Datacenter Interconnetion, Edge

Diego Alejandro Laverde Zuleta

At present, one of the most relevant components in the global telecommunications ecosystem is data centers, better known as Datacenters. But what is Datacenter interconnection?

What is Datacenter interconnection?

A data center, computer room, data processing center, or, commercially defined, Datacenter, is a specially designed space to house the computing and storage infrastructure of corporate clients (B2B), the infrastructures of major Public Cloud Computing operators (AWS, Azure, GCP, Oracle, etc.), and local infrastructures such as InterNexa's Cloud services.

In addition to this, the connection of these services with telecommunications operators creates a services ecosystem that globalizes networks, allowing the distribution and interconnection of workloads summarized in applications for corporate and mass use, protected by highly secure architectures.

Latin America is present in this Datacenter ecosystem, and according to Global Data studies, the market share distribution is composed of 64.5% in Brazil, 16.87% in Colombia, 8.01% in Argentina, 7.18% in Chile, and 3.45% in Peru.

While the growth of Datacenter services can be measured by revenue, their positioning within a country's digital ecosystem is sometimes measured by the size in square meters of their constructed facilities. However, the reality is that the critical aspect of these services lies in their capacity to offer electrical power (measured in Megawatts (MW)) rather than the availability of physical space.

In this context, the major challenges for this industry lie in ensuring substantial power capacity, coupled with strategies to combine clean energy sources and reduce carbon footprints. According to a research report by Arizton, cited by DatacenterDynamics (August 2022) and available on datacentermap.com, there are over 130 Datacenters in the region, and it is expected that the Latin American data center construction market will grow at a CAGR of 7% during the period 2022-2027. This will generate investments close to 1.54 billion dollars, led by countries such as Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Mexico, Bolivia, and Argentina.

This growth and development of data centers in the region are driven by improved fiber connectivity, cost reduction, greater reliability in power supply, high-security standards, significant demand, and flexibility in specialized services.

Why is interconnecting data centers important?

Data centers have become an essential element within the global interconnection ecosystem, where multiple stakeholders in the telecommunications and information technology environments converge to offer various types of connectivity, security, cloud computing, public cloud access, and specialized services. Hence, having state-of-the-art, efficient, and high-bandwidth connectivity (100/200/400/800G optical lambdas) becomes crucial for efficiently handling all the information generated in data centers. Technologies like DCI (Datacenter Interconnect) largely facilitate this task.

What is Datacenter Interconnect (DCI)?

Due to the significance of data centers worldwide, they cannot exist in isolation. Their competitiveness largely depends on their ability to connect with each other, share data, content, and serve as a redundancy option to guarantee their clients' business continuity.

DCI technology enables data transit between data centers. The most appropriate means to connect these sites is through high-speed optical connectivity based on technological innovations such as coherent networks, providing better performance and greater flexibility in transporting much more information over the same optical fiber.

Datacenter interconnection constantly faces several challenges:

Distance: Many applications and services present in data centers are sensitive to delay (latency). It is always crucial to optimize the interconnecting networks to minimize the time it takes for data to travel from one point to another.
Costs: It is always a factor to consider if competitiveness is to be maintained. Data centers are not exempt from this global phenomenon, and their costs cannot increase at the same rate as the bandwidth of their networks. It is essential that technology allows for optimizations: with higher capacities, the cost per unit of capacity should be reduced.
Capacity and Reliability: Data centers handle unimaginable amounts of traffic, and to cope with such loads, the architecture of the connecting networks must support large bandwidth capacities, enabling greater agility in their growth and high reliability to safeguard the integrity of the information that enters and exits them.
Automation: The activation of connectivity services between data centers must be done quickly and reliably, which makes it necessary for the tasks involved in this process to not rely on manual activities constantly. This is where automation and technology play a fundamental role in ensuring this crucial function.

Much of the success that data centers achieve is supported by their ability to interconnect reliably and cost-effectively with the global ecosystem.

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Diego Alejandro Laverde Zuleta

Electronic Engineer with over 13 years of experience in the Telecommunications sector, specialized in Teleinformatics, Senior Management, and a Master's in Administration with an emphasis on Innovation. Knowledge of the regional market, catering to Wholesale, Corporate, and Service Provider clients in Colombia, Peru, Chile, Argentina, and Brazil. Proficient in IP/MPLS, DWDM, and SDH/PDH networks with a focus on developing and managing products in the connectivity portfolio.