Close Menu
TechCentralTechCentral

    Subscribe to the newsletter

    Get the best South African technology news and analysis delivered to your e-mail inbox every morning.

    Facebook X (Twitter) YouTube LinkedIn
    WhatsApp Facebook X (Twitter) LinkedIn YouTube
    TechCentralTechCentral
    • News

      10 red flags for Apple investors

      13 June 2025

      Chief sub-editor wanted – help shape South African tech media

      13 June 2025

      MultiChoice may unbundle SuperSport from DStv

      12 June 2025

      MVNO boom is reshaping South Africa’s mobile market

      12 June 2025

      South African law is failing gig-economy workers

      12 June 2025
    • World

      Qualcomm shows off new chip for AI smart glasses

      11 June 2025

      Trump tariffs to dim 2025 smartphone shipments

      4 June 2025

      Shrimp Jesus and the AI ad invasion

      4 June 2025

      Apple slams EU rules as ‘flawed and costly’ in major legal pushback

      2 June 2025

      Mark Zuckerberg has finally found a use for his metaverse

      30 May 2025
    • In-depth

      Grok promised bias-free chat. Then came the edits

      2 June 2025

      Digital fortress: We go inside JB5, Teraco’s giant new AI-ready data centre

      30 May 2025

      Sam Altman and Jony Ive’s big bet to out-Apple Apple

      22 May 2025

      South Africa unveils big state digital reform programme

      12 May 2025

      Is this the end of Google Search as we know it?

      12 May 2025
    • TCS

      TechCentral Nexus S0E1: Starlink, BEE and a new leader at Vodacom

      8 June 2025

      TCS+ | The future of mobile money, with MTN’s Kagiso Mothibi

      6 June 2025

      TCS+ | AI is more than hype: Workday execs unpack real human impact

      4 June 2025

      TCS | Sentiv, and the story behind the buyout of Altron Nexus

      3 June 2025

      TCS | Signal restored: Unpacking the Blue Label and Cell C turnaround

      28 May 2025
    • Opinion

      Beyond the box: why IT distribution depends on real partnerships

      2 June 2025

      South Africa’s next crisis? Being offline in an AI-driven world

      2 June 2025

      Digital giants boost South African news media – and get blamed for it

      29 May 2025

      Solar panic? The truth about SSEG, fines and municipal rules

      14 April 2025

      Data protection must be crypto industry’s top priority

      9 April 2025
    • Company Hubs
      • Africa Data Centres
      • AfriGIS
      • Altron Digital Business
      • Altron Document Solutions
      • Altron Group
      • Arctic Wolf
      • AvertITD
      • Braintree
      • CallMiner
      • CYBER1 Solutions
      • Digicloud Africa
      • Digimune
      • Domains.co.za
      • ESET
      • Euphoria Telecom
      • Incredible Business
      • iONLINE
      • Iris Network Systems
      • LSD Open
      • NEC XON
      • Network Platforms
      • Next DLP
      • Ovations
      • Paracon
      • Paratus
      • Q-KON
      • SkyWire
      • Solid8 Technologies
      • Telit Cinterion
      • Tenable
      • Vertiv
      • Videri Digital
      • Wipro
      • Workday
    • Sections
      • AI and machine learning
      • Banking
      • Broadcasting and Media
      • Cloud services
      • Contact centres and CX
      • Cryptocurrencies
      • Education and skills
      • Electronics and hardware
      • Energy and sustainability
      • Enterprise software
      • Fintech
      • Information security
      • Internet and connectivity
      • Internet of Things
      • Investment
      • IT services
      • Lifestyle
      • Motoring
      • Public sector
      • Retail and e-commerce
      • Science
      • SMEs and start-ups
      • Social media
      • Talent and leadership
      • Telecoms
    • Events
    • Advertise
    TechCentralTechCentral
    Home » Company News » Bringing AI into the data centre

    Bringing AI into the data centre

    By Pinnacle10 June 2019
    Twitter LinkedIn Facebook WhatsApp Email Telegram Copy Link
    News Alerts
    WhatsApp
    Fred Saayman

    The data centre remains the lifeblood of any business. Its role is crucial to delivering IT services and ensuring that an increasing number of networked devices, users and business processes have access to networking and storage.

    However, across the globe, the data centre industry is undergoing a massive shift. Organisations find themselves in a world that is increasingly digital and connected, and one that has skyrocketed in complexity. Technologies such as cloud, edge computing, Internet of things (IoT) and artificial intelligence (AI) are reshaping the way workloads are deployed and managed, and are driving digital transformation within the data centre itself.

    “All these new technologies have an impact on the data centre, in terms power, cooling, resiliency, scalability, and more, and yesterday’s IT departments have to up their game to try and match the efficiencies that today’s hyperscale cloud providers are able to offer,” says Fred Saayman, Huawei business unit executive at Pinnacle ICT, South Africa’s leading local ICT distributor.

    In order to compete effectively with falling public cloud prices, enterprise facilities have to be incredibly efficient

    But, he says, data centre facility ownership is no longer a given, as businesses of all types are looking at hybrid data centre models for economic and competitive reasons. “The common maxim today is that the world is moving towards a hybrid model, and this will be the de facto way we compute in the future.”

    Saayman says there are many reasons for this. Firstly, the “BYO” movement, which is seeing employees wanting to work on their devices and applications of choice, is forcing CIOs to be more platform agnostic. “Today’s users insist on being able to use any device they want to access everything they have, which is creating several technology challenges for the tech department. Having a hybrid model will balance that out.”

    But the move towards hybrid architectures is also putting a lot of pressure on IT departments to modernise. “In order to compete effectively with falling public cloud prices, enterprise facilities have to be incredibly efficient, and they have no choice but to comply with increasingly stringent data sovereignty and residency regulations. They need to find a way to more effectively manage complexity within their data centres.”

    No shortcomings

    Although most CIOs think they have a comprehensive grasp on data centre management, operation and planning, too often, they don’t,” Saayman says.

    “It is impossible for any IT leader or even a team of IT experts to exert the most granular control over crucial data centre tasks. People, even the most highly skilled and educated ones, have the tendency to let personal preferences, prejudices and misconceptions to get in the way and cloud their views on planning and other key responsibilities.”

    AI on the other hand, he says, has no such shortcomings and is beginning to have an impact on an variety of core data centre operations and services. “Many different types of data centres can benefit from harnessing the power of AI. Intelligent automation and machine learning, for example, can be used to better manage internal resources as well as anticipate any future hardware and data needs that might arise.”

    Moreover, AI is helping data centres become greener. “For several years now, AI technologies have been playing a greater role in lowering data centre energy consumption and waste. “AI applications reduce power requirements, report any cooling inefficiencies and continually analyse the health status of all crucial systems to increase efficiency while saving power. Moreover, AI can also significantly cut storage energy consumption. By using AI monitoring and analytics to anticipate the different types of user activities, data centres can rapidly shift data that is used less frequently to reduce energy storage resources and move data that is used more frequently to higher performance storage.”

    AI can optimise data centre performance by continually monitoring and adjusting resources such as processing, networking and memory

    According to Saayman, another area where the data centre can benefit from AI is in security. “With a fast-shifting threat landscape, data centre security requirements are changing too. Until a few years ago, the greatest threats data centres faced arose from the insider threat, or fairly non-evolved brute force attacks. This is no longer the case, as we see threat actors designing AI-based algorithms, which are constantly probing to find any chink in the data centre’s armour.”

    AI is also helping data centres adapt more rapidly to evolving security requirements, while enabling a more secure environment for users without enforcing strict rules, or needing too much user intervention, he explains. “AI tools are also excellent at picking up malicious code and spam, as they can analyse activity patterns to pinpoint any anomalous, and therefore potentially dangerous, behaviour.”

    Finally, he says AI can optimise data centre performance by continually monitoring and adjusting resources such as processing, networking and memory, helping organisations to run their data centres at peak efficiency. “It can also be employed to monitor workload distribution and optimise server configuration and utilisation, which makes infrastructure more scalable and efficient.”

    • This promoted content may have been paid for by the party concerned


    Fred Saayman Pinnacle Pinnacle ICT
    Subscribe to TechCentral Subscribe to TechCentral
    Share. Facebook Twitter LinkedIn WhatsApp Telegram Email Copy Link
    Previous ArticleTalkCentral: Ep 262 – ‘Return of the cheese grater’
    Next Article LanDynamix provides technology platform for Carter app

    Related Posts

    TCS+ | Pinnacle’s Jacques Visagie – AI will transform SA business

    20 November 2024

    Pinnacle CEO: how AI can drive positive societal change

    2 July 2024

    ‘AI Unleashed’: Pinnacle adds value to partners and clients

    11 June 2024
    Company News

    SAPHILA 2025 – transcending with purpose, connection and AI-powered vision

    13 June 2025

    Building a cyber-resilient culture from the boardroom to the front lines

    12 June 2025

    How South Africa’s municipalities are finally getting smart

    12 June 2025
    Opinion

    Beyond the box: why IT distribution depends on real partnerships

    2 June 2025

    South Africa’s next crisis? Being offline in an AI-driven world

    2 June 2025

    Digital giants boost South African news media – and get blamed for it

    29 May 2025

    Subscribe to Updates

    Get the best South African technology news and analysis delivered to your e-mail inbox every morning.

    © 2009 - 2025 NewsCentral Media

    Type above and press Enter to search. Press Esc to cancel.