Evolving Access & Management
How are server room dynamics evolving? Global IT investments are being propelled by the surge in cloud services and optimization efforts, while the widespread adoption of AI is fueling the need for more powerful computing solutions. This means the server industry is on track for a robust expansion. The transition to hybrid and cloud-enhanced server environments calls for inventive management approaches to ensure agility, growth and energy efficiency in a swiftly changing tech landscape.
Size of Server Market in USD by 2027
196
By 2027, the server market is expected to be worth $195.6 billion 1, driven by a move towards application-optimized server configurations with many co-processors, such as AI training and video transcoding.
Average Yearly Cost to Power a Single Rack
30K
With the proliferation of AI, the adoption of power-hungry GPUs, & the evolution of the IoT, HPC, & 5G industries, power consumption per rack will continue to rise.3
Average Rack Density by 2030
20
While high-cost AI servers are growing in penetration, global rack density in server rooms is also witnessing a significant surge, in both established markets and emerging regions. 2
Amount of Total Energy Required for Cooling
40
The amount of energy required for cooling remains a top concern. While centralized cooling remains popular, distributed cooling architectures are more flexible and likely to become the preferred choice. 4
Trends
Higher Costs for High Availability Do Pay Off
In today's digital era, where connectivity is crucial, high availability (HA) in server rooms ensures systems remain operational, minimizing downtime. This is essential for maintaining continuous access to IT equipment interconnected with the internet or IoT. Effective HA strategies involve eliminating single points of failure and investing in redundant components and OOB access, despite higher costs, to safeguard against outages and ensure business continuity.
Scalability Crucial for Longevity, Service Continuity
Scalability is important in server rooms for adapting to fluctuating demands, ensuring uninterrupted quality and service. It allows for expansion or reduction through additional servers, hardware upgrades, virtualization, or cloud integration. This adaptability supports growing business needs while enhancing power efficiency, cost-effectiveness, and high-density benefits, making it a key factor in the longevity and efficiency of server room investments.
DCIM Tools Key to Sustaining Operational Efficiency
DCIM tools are vital in server rooms for ensuring sustainable, efficient operations. By providing real-time monitoring and management of both IT and facility resources, including power and cooling systems, DCIM tools enable better planning and optimization of data center infrastructure. They go beyond traditional asset management by tracking asset locations and interrelationships, essential for maximizing power efficiency, cooling, and space utilization, and ensuring long-term operational effectiveness.
Growing Threats Require Multilayered Security
Server room security is critical due to increasing cyber threats and the rise of remote and hybrid work. Protecting data centers involves multiple layers, from physical access control and surveillance to advanced network security measures like encryption and endpoint protection. The industry, facing risks like ransomware, is moving towards integrating robust security features directly into data center equipment, emphasizing the importance of comprehensive security strategies to prevent breaches, financial losses, and reputational damage.
AI Server Boom Drives Innovations, Fuels Management Evolution
The rise of AI, whether for training or inference, will have significant impact on server rooms. Overall, AI will drive demand for more powerful hardware, increased network bandwidth, the development of edge computing capabilities, and higher power usage. However, while high infrastructure costs pose barriers, in terms of management, most AI servers with console and management ports are likely to be maintained in the same way as other any other servers, which is already rapidly evolving. 1
Energy Efficiency Remains Core Green Goal
The push for green server rooms emphasizes energy efficiency and reduced environmental impact, addressing high power and cooling demands. With sustainability mandates intensifying, the majority of large companies will soon require IT hardware and facilities to be carbon-neutral and energy-efficient. Innovations in cooling and automation are key, driving the adoption of green initiatives to ensure cost-effective, reliable IT operations while supporting the green energy revolution.
Challenges
Navigating post-pandemic IT challenges, businesses must adapt their infrastructure for enhanced efficiency. Key challenges for server room management solution providers include:- Developing scalable solutions that adapt to evolving business and customer application needs
- Customizing solutions for industry-specific AI impacts
- Driving business value through technological innovation, not just maintenance
- Accelerating server room digitalization to boost IT/OT synergy
- Implementing robust, multi-layered security to combat the rise in cyber threats
- Optimizing efficiency to meet green energy targets while maintaining high availability
- Streamlining remote management for superior user experience and BIOS-level control
ATEN stands at the forefront, offering innovative and sustainable management solutions tailored to empower businesses to thrive in this new era of diversified data management
Meeting AI's Demands
The proliferation of expensive and powerful AI servers requires a radical transformation in server management. These advanced servers necessitate environments that can swiftly adapt to increasing workloads, while maintaining optimal operational conditions to prevent overheating and mitigate failure risks.- Innovative Local Console Management: Enhancing Efficiency
Local console management solutions like rack-mount KVM switches and LCD KVM consoles allow direct and consolidated control over multiple AI servers from a single console. This setup eliminates the need for a physical presence at each server rack, greatly enhancing operational efficiency, and significantly reducing response times to any issues that arise. The growing power requirements in server rooms driven by the AI boom also make 3-phase PDUs increasingly vital to maintaining operational stability at the local level at smaller locations. - Remote Console Management: Maximizing Flexibility and Security
Remote console management through technologies such as KVM over IP switches offers the flexibility to manage and troubleshoot AI servers from any location. These solutions allow the servers to be located in secured facilities that do not require regular physical access, and provide secure, BIOS-level access without the need for server-side software, which increases security by reducing the attack surface. This capability is crucial for maintaining continuous operations, especially in geographically dispersed server environments. - Out-of-Band Management (OOBM): Ensuring Uninterrupted Service
By providing extra redundant paths in the backup management network, OOBM solutions are essential for managing AI servers that are unresponsive or isolated from the main network due to system failures. Devices like serial console servers and KVM over IP switches enable technicians to perform critical recovery operations—such as reboots and configuration restores—outside the regular network channels, ensuring that server downtime is minimized and service continuity is maintained.
Local console management solutions like rack-mount KVM switches and LCD KVM consoles allow direct and consolidated control over multiple AI servers from a single console. This setup eliminates the need for a physical presence at each server rack, greatly enhancing operational efficiency, and significantly reducing response times to any issues that arise. The growing power requirements in server rooms driven by the AI boom also make 3-phase PDUs increasingly vital to maintaining operational stability at the local level at smaller locations.
Remote console management through technologies such as KVM over IP switches offers the flexibility to manage and troubleshoot AI servers from any location. These solutions allow the servers to be located in secured facilities that do not require regular physical access, and provide secure, BIOS-level access without the need for server-side software, which increases security by reducing the attack surface. This capability is crucial for maintaining continuous operations, especially in geographically dispersed server environments.
By providing extra redundant paths in the backup management network, OOBM solutions are essential for managing AI servers that are unresponsive or isolated from the main network due to system failures. Devices like serial console servers and KVM over IP switches enable technicians to perform critical recovery operations—such as reboots and configuration restores—outside the regular network channels, ensuring that server downtime is minimized and service continuity is maintained.
ATEN Solutions
Managing server rooms across different scales requires a layered approach, integrating fundamental management tools with advanced features to address the unique challenges presented at each level. From the simplicity of single-rack setups to the complexity of large server environments and the demands of AI-specialized infrastructures, the focus remains on efficiency, scalability, reliability, and security, ensuring the backbone of IT infrastructure remains robust and responsive to the needs of the business. ATEN offers a comprehensive suite of solutions for server room management, whatever the scale:- Local & Centralized Remote Access & Control Solutions
Providing vendor-neutral BIOS-level and OOB access, enabling real-time updates and maintenance, streamlining the management of complex IT landscapes - Unified Remote Server + Switch Access & Control Solutions
Integrating server & switch management, support a wide range of platforms and serial-based devices, fostering seamless operation - Intelligent Power Management Solutions
Integrating with centralized server management systems, these prioritize energy efficiency, helping organizations meet their sustainability targets - Centralized Management Software
Consolidating server room operations through centralized management and easy monitoring to help maximize uptime, optimize capacity planning & utilization, and boost overall efficiency and productivity
Providing vendor-neutral BIOS-level and OOB access, enabling real-time updates and maintenance, streamlining the management of complex IT landscapes
Integrating server & switch management, support a wide range of platforms and serial-based devices, fostering seamless operation
Integrating with centralized server management systems, these prioritize energy efficiency, helping organizations meet their sustainability targets
Consolidating server room operations through centralized management and easy monitoring to help maximize uptime, optimize capacity planning & utilization, and boost overall efficiency and productivity
ATEN Solutions in Action
Optimizing Efficiency and Security in Nuclear Substations with Single-Rack Solutions
In a nuclear power plant substation, the demand is high for a compact server management solution within the limited server room space, enhancing seamless power transmission operations. This system should allow easy server switching and secure remote access, maintaining a continuous link with the electrical grid. Aimed at streamlining the control room and improving the Human System Interface, the solution should minimize the need for multiple displays, combining operator tasks to cut costs. It must also support extended reach for effective power management, crucial for the plant's startup and key equipment, ensuring operational reliability and efficiency.
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Control Signal Distribution & VSAT Support for Large Deep-sea Fishing Trawler
A premier European seafood company is advancing its fleet with cutting-edge technologies for marine conservation and worker safety. A notable upgrade involved equipping a ship with an advanced server management and AV system in the bridge control room, enabling high-resolution consolidation of radar, vessel monitoring, and oceanographic data on the captain's screen. Crew members need to directly control server rack PCs from this central point, while IT technicians must have capability to remotely address technical problems through a satellite network, to ensure continuous operational efficiency and integrity of the vessel.
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OOBM for Efficient 5G Infrastructure Troubleshooting in Smart Cities
A leading telecom operator is driving 5G smart cities and economic growth with advanced digital infrastructure, including a vast network of switches and servers in cloud centers. The network's complexity sometimes requires vendor engineers' on-site fixes, particularly when issues like corrupt configuration files make switches unreachable. To prevent service disruptions, there's an urgent need for an out-of-band management system. This would allow remote troubleshooting and repair, ensuring minimal downtime and boosting the reliability and efficiency of the infrastructure essential to the smart city ecosystem.
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Enhancing Data Control and Compliance in Banking through Scalable KVM Solutions
A prominent bank was looking for new, more adaptable solution for its IT hub that can accommodate future server expansions. The solution must enable IT managers to seamlessly and centrally access servers located in both the main and backup server rooms, located in different cities, from a centralized IT hub, without the necessity for individual remote desktop software installations on each server. The new data management solution must not only offer scalability to manage an increased number of servers, aligning with potential business growth, but also adhere to government mandates for compliance and auditing purposes.
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Optimizing SCADA Server Management for Enhanced Oil Refinery Automation
A leading oil refinery processing 230,000 barrels daily sought a sophisticated SCADA server management solution to boost process automation. The goal was to enable both local and remote server control across four sites, streamlining data management from automation systems and sensor monitoring through long-range wireless technology. The challenge involved deploying a system for local server room management without PCs or laptops in control rooms for security, while supporting Full HD, rack-mount compatibility, and barcode scanner integration, aligning with the refinery's infrastructure and protocols
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Digitalizing Testing & Development to Streamline Flash Memory Manufacturing
A prominent flash memory chip manufacturer aimed to optimize its lab operations, focusing on streamlining the testing and development processes. The challenge involved efficiently managing over a hundred PCs for software updates and testing protocols. The solution required an all-digital system that allowed engineers to remotely adjust BIOS settings, install software, and execute tests on multiple machines concurrently. Key to this was enabling simultaneous remote access for several engineers to ensure swift task execution and effective result analysis, enhancing overall productivity.
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Advancing Semiconductor Operations with Strategic Serial Console Server Upgrades
A leading semiconductor manufacturer was the process of upgrading its serial console servers used for out-of-band management of network switches within its fabrication facilities. The upgrade aims to empower the MIS administrator with the ability to remotely access, configure, and restore settings on any console port across the core, distribution, and access network switches. This will be facilitated through a unified, secure, and dependable management platform, ensuring that the administrator has secure access to the network switches via a management network distinct from the main production network, thereby enhancing operational efficiency and network security.
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Strategic Solution for Enhanced Security and Digital Transformation in Government Treasury
A government ministry responsible for all treasury-related matters required a server management and control room solution for its new building. The finance ministry plays an active role in the promotion and implementation of government policy, so the solution not only needed to be highly secure, but also had to help to revitalize core assets as part of the government’s digital transformation strategy. The main server room is located on the 3rd floor, and server management and monitoring capabilities had to be split across two separate government departments in control rooms on different floors.
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Single Racks
For effective single-rack server room management, local console management is facilitated by Rack KVM Switches, Cat 5 KVM Switches, and LCD KVM consoles and switches, allowing direct connection to servers for maintenance without the need for multiple peripherals, thereby minimizing clutter and enhancing safety in server environments. A scalable design is also crucial, allowing for future growth and integration of additional equipment without a complete overhaul. Power management can be efficiently handled through intelligent power distribution units and environmental monitoring solutions, ensuring sustainable energy use and system reliability. Remote console management capabilities are provided by serial console servers and KVM over IP switches, offering flexibility in accessing and managing servers from any location, which is crucial for timely interventions and system updates.
Core Requirements
- Local console management
- Scalable design
- Power/Energy management
- Remote console management
Small Server Rooms
10 racks, 1MW
In addition to the core requirements outlined for single racks, there are two additional essentials for small server rooms: Server screen monitoring & control are crucial for real-time observation and interaction with server displays, ensuring immediate response to alerts or issues. This capability is often enabled by advanced KVM switches that offer high-resolution video, Panel Array Mode viewing, and seamless control over connected servers, allowing for efficient troubleshooting and task execution. Centralized management streamlines the administration of server resources, making it easier to perform updates, patches, and configurations from a single console. This reduces the complexity and time needed for routine maintenance, enhancing system reliability and uptime.
Core Requirements
- Local console management
- Scalable design
- Power/Energy management
- Remote console management
- Server screen monitoring & control
- Centralized management
Medium Server Rooms
10-100 racks, 10MW
As scale progresses, in medium server rooms, environment monitoring becomes a pivotal requirement. This includes tracking temperature, humidity, airflow, and power consumption to prevent hardware failure and ensure optimal performance. Advanced monitoring systems provide real-time alerts and data, enabling proactive adjustments and safeguarding against environmental anomalies. Integrated with centralized management systems, these solutions allow for a comprehensive view of server health and environmental conditions, ensuring the longevity and reliability of critical infrastructure.
Core Requirements
- Local console management
- Scalable design
- Power/Energy management
- Remote console management
- Server screen monitoring & control
- Centralized management
- Environmental monitoring
Large Server Rooms
100+ racks, 50MW
In addition to the core fundamentals for single racks, small and medium server rooms, for large server rooms, session recording and high security become crucial components of management. Session recording provides an audit trail of all activities, enabling detailed review and analysis for training, troubleshooting, and compliance purposes. This feature ensures that every action taken within the server environment is tracked and retrievable, enhancing accountability and operational insight. High security is paramount to protect sensitive data and maintain system integrity. Advanced encryption, multi-factor authentication, and stringent access controls are employed to safeguard against unauthorized access and potential breaches. These security measures are integrated into management systems to ensure a secure and resilient infrastructure, crucial for maintaining trust and compliance in large-scale operations.
Core Requirements
- Local console management
- Scalable design
- Power/Energy management
- Remote console management
- Server screen monitoring & control
- Centralized management
- Environmental monitoring
- Session recording
- High security
