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At the end of every year, I make it a point to review our blog readership detail to see which topics you, our audience, find the most interesting. The Schneider Electric and APC blogs continue to be recognized in the marketplace as a great source of thought leadership and information on data center solutions; perspectives from hundreds of global bloggers creates a rich platform for exchanging ideas. In 2019, four topics in particular stood out to our readers. My bet is that many of you will be able to glean solid insights from these trending topics for your own organization.

1. Sustainability Efforts Ramp Up with Renewables

Blog posts that covered how to leverage renewable energy garnered a lot of attention. In fact, many colocation and service providers are moving quickly to implement renewables in order to drive down their energy costs. In particular, this blog features the new marketplace initiatives that are now influencing the growth of renewable energy systems.

As you would expect then, customer sustainability goals were at the forefront and clearly aligned to business growth and objectives. Check out DigiPlex’s story, a colocation provider who deployed energy efficient products to reduce energy consumption while meeting the digital demands of its customers.

2. The Latest on 5G and Telco Edge Deployments

Other topics which have gained visibility are Telco Edge and hyperconverged architectures, which this blog highlights, following a panel discussion at Edge Congress. While today only 10% of all data is processed at the edge, analysts expect that within three years, between 50% and 75% of all data will be generated at the edge. Video solutions and autonomous vehicles enabled by the evolution of 5G are just two examples as to why I think these bold predictions will likely come to fruition. Telecom companies will also play a central role in this expansion. They have already spent billions on infrastructure. Now they will be further challenged to handle ever expanding loads of bandwidth-intensive applications. Colocation providers will also play a key role in helping these companies, through regional edge computing sites, to deliver, process, and store all of that data. We will be keeping a close watch on this exciting market in the years to come.

3. Data Center Consolidation Optimization Best Practices

Another popular topic this year was data center consolidation. Business drivers such as corporate mergers and acquisitions and the popularity of edge computing, cloud and colocation data center strategies have increased the level of data center consolidation activity. One of our blog posts on the topic generated over 61,000 views in 2019 alone. It covers a five-step approach to help data center managers navigate data center consolidation challenges. Such as: evaluating capacity and density capabilities, reviewing physical infrastructure viability, interpreting energy efficiency metrics and much more. Be sure to read it to make sure your data center consolidation efforts cover the fundamentals.

4. Hybrid IT Strategies Ramp Up

According to a Gartner press release, 75% of data center Infrastructure and Operations (I&O) leaders are unprepared for the level of skills, cultural presence and non-traditional hybrid IT approaches required to succeed over the next 2-3 years. One of our data center infrastructure planning blog posts points out specific areas where improvements are needed. This includes the development of an agile power and cooling infrastructure and the delivery of new services that foster tenants’ business agility and growth. We are also seeing the need for more digitized operations that enable rapidly growing regional and local edge environments.

Of course, addressing the skills gap is top of mind for many data center managers and approaches such as mapping out broader and less siloed IT career paths are helping to close that gap. (See this blog, or this one, or this one!) Embracing these strategies will enable a deeper understanding of corporate IT portfolios in a business context. This, in turn, promotes the thought diversity needed to prepare teams for the emerging demands of digital business.

What Will the Top 2020 Data Center Topics Be?

Now that I’ve shared the highlights from 2019, we want to learn more about what blog topics you’d like to have covered in 2020. Please share your input by commenting below!

The post Best of 2019: Top 4 Most Popular Data Center Discussions That Caught Your Attention appeared first on Schneider Electric Blog.