By Vinay Prabhu,

Blockchain technology has revolutionized the data that would have been difficult to predict a few years ago. What is only considered to be a technology behind the birth of cryptocurrency, bitcoin, has spread its wings and now encompasses almost all facets of industries. Now, IT experts, especially in the data center industry are eyeing to capitalize on its many features.

The history of blockchain technology and the data center industry, specifically, colocation is nothing new. Even when bitcoin wasn’t mainstream back in 2014, many in the data center industry were still keen to attract businesses in need of colocation space to run their blockchain mining operations. Since blockchain mining is computer-intensive software that requires specialized hardware and often consumes a vast amount of electricity, many often in the blockchain industry partner with such companies. But, the advancements in the technology have revealed its potential to disrupt blockchain technology for good.

As the data center industry continues to proliferate, with SkyQuest projecting it could attain a market size of USD 311.63 billion by 2028, many in the blockchain community are paying keen attention to entering the market with their offerings. Experts such as David Furlonger, Distinguished Vice President Analyst, Gartner believe that enterprises will need to embrace decentralization and strategic tokenization to benefit from blockchain technology as a whole.

First, let’s understand what blockchain is

A truly innovative advanced technology, blockchain creates a decentralized record of each transaction or block on the chain (or ledger), which is sent to multiple locations with computers to build a verification system. This increases transparency and also makes it extremely difficult for threat actors to get access to sensitive data.

As threat actors are becoming increasingly sophisticated in their approach to getting access to the network and extracting confidential data, having a system in place that makes their life difficult is beneficial in improving the security of the infrastructure.

Here are a few ways that blockchain technology will revolutionize the data center industry for good:

Strengthen Security

Data centers being a critical infrastructure attract unwanted attention from threat actors that see the prime target to execute their malicious intent. In fact, between April to December 2021, nearly 51 million cyber-attack events have been recorded on Data Center Networks across India. This is especially a major concern for the Indian enterprise industry which has been heavily investing in data center infrastructure.

With blockchain technology in place, enterprise leaders can have peace of mind. As the technology allows for tamper-proof data storage and sharing, it cannot be altered or deleted without the consensus of the network. Moreover, blockchain-based solutions also decrease the risk of cyber-attacks and data breaches by spreading data across multiple nodes, instead of relying on a single centralized data center further strengthening the security of data.

Making it more resilient

In its 2022 Data Center Survey Report, Uptime Institute found that downtime efforts and consequences have worsened as industry efforts to curb outage frequency have fallen significantly. In fact, prolonged downtime is increasingly becoming more common in publicly reported outages. To tackle these data center issues, enterprises should incorporate blockchain solutions. Its decentralized nature enables data to be stored and processed by multiple parties instead of relying on a centralized data center. This reduces the risk of single points of failure, making the data center more resilient.

Improve energy efficiency

Data centers have been always seen as consuming massive amounts of energy. In Ireland alone, it is predicted that 27% of all electricity will be consumed by data centers by 2029. Experts predict that this will soon be a situation in major global economies that are investing heavily in data center facilities. With the energy crisis looming due to ongoing political dynamics, it will be critical for enterprises to find ways to make the most of their data centers without increasing their energy and carbon footprint. And blockchain technology may just help them to accomplish this.

Smart contracts, one of the blockchain-based solutions, can help enterprises to automate processes and reduce the need for manual intervention. It results in increased efficiency and cost savings. Moreover, smart contracts are self-executing contracts, with the terms of the agreement written directly into the code. Meaning, as soon as certain conditions are met, the contract will automatically execute without the need for human intervention. This can help to automate processes, making them faster and energy efficient in the long run.

Conclusion

The data center industry has come a long way since its inception. With the heavy investment by enterprises and governments across the globe, it is unlikely that the industry will see slow growth. But, without the implementation of advanced technology such as blockchain, the industry will be a prime avenue for threat actors to execute their malicious intent or become more prone to power outages due to the energy crisis. Hence, adoption of it will be in the best interest of the industry in the long term.

The author is Global Vice President of Engineering at Rahi.

Disclaimer: The views expressed are solely of the author and ETCIO.com does not necessarily subscribe to it. ETCIO.com shall not be responsible for any damage caused to any person/organization directly or indirectly.