Cisco Pushing Automation & AI for Data Center Management
Cisco recently completed their ‘Cisco Live’ event where CEO Chuck Robbins provided some interesting insights into their efforts to improve the way their data centers work. Cisco has long been an innovative company that ‘sets the tone’ for the future of technology, and by all accounts, has maintained that standard. Specifically, they are looking to take their ‘intent-based’ strategies and bring it to their data centers.
The implementation of this strategy will allow advanced machine learning to monitor the data in the data center and make intelligent decisions on how the equipment should operate. By allowing machines to learn from the other machines, real time changes can be made, providing the most efficient and cost-effective solutions for the data center. This technology can be applied across multiple data centers for companies like Cisco that operate in many locations, to provide further benefits.
Intersight
The first step into the making this technology possible is known as Intersight. Intersight is an advanced cloud-based management and automation system which will be in used unison with their Unified Computing System (UCS) and Hyperflex System. The culmination of these technologies will serve to help improve life cycle management of servers as well as offer a more centralized location for gathering and monitoring systems throughout cloud environments.
Project Starship
To complement the Intersight systems, Cisco introduced a multi-year effort known as Project Starship. The goal of this project is to further automate the management of data centers with an end goal of self-managing data centers. The system will be able to detect potential problems based on occurring errors and alert the necessary teams to fix or replace hardware well before it could impact the customer. Systems that are performing poorly will be removed from active use until issues can be addressed. Perhaps most importantly, the data center will be able to analyze requests for services, identify how they can best be processed, and assign resources based on that information.
The Future of Data Centers
While these projects are currently specific to Cisco, there is little doubt that the rest of the industry will follow suit with this ground-breaking idea. If the project is a success, Cisco will likely license it out, or offer it as a service to other data centers. Many companies, large and small, are constantly innovating, which serves to bring improvement to the entire industry.