Emerging Trends in Data Center Management Automation

New and emerging technologies have consolidated the Fourth Industrial Revolution, an era of cyber-physical systems, where the physical and digital worlds are closely connected. While most of the world is being impacted by a pandemic, data centers have managed to keep people connected and keep the economy afloat. As such, they are witnessing an unprecedented need for automation of their monitoring and management processes in order to minimize reliance on human interaction. A growing number of new technologies are transforming mission critical facilities into a highly connected, smart, and more efficient, productive and sustainable industry. Vast amounts of data are being collected in real-time, and processed to predict behavior, to produce actionable recommendations, and to improve decision-making. This paper summarizes the three main emerging technological trends, identified by the authors, which enable these processes in data center management automation: 1) intelligent monitoring and management systems using data science; 2) simulation tools incorporating artificial intelligence and digital twinning; and 3) robotics for process automation.