Executive Insights: Brian Kortendick of BASELAYER

BRIAN KORTENDICK of BASELAYER

Brian Kortendick is the Vice President of Market Development for BASELAYER. BASELAYER is a global leader in the software-defined data centers and has engineered a modular data center and Intelligent Control platform that serves as the foundation for the Cloud. Brian is responsible for developing BASELAYER’s Partner Network to build and deploy solutions that accelerate business results, expand market share and increase revenues. With 18 years of experience in the data center field, Brian is a proven leader in developing/implementing successful sales strategies, bringing a unique blend of sales leadership and technical aptitude, to drive complex sales initiatives to successful completion. By reputation, his sales leadership in the enterprise, cloud and HPC data center market is recognized in both the technology consulting and critical facilities engineering fields, with a passion for providing integrated IT and facilities solutions. He has developed data center go-to-market strategies previously with MWH Global, Carson Associates, EYP Mission Critical Facilities, Inc., Hewlett-Packard and IO.

Here’s the full text of Brian Kortendick’s insights from our Executive Roundtable:

Data Center Frontier: What will be the key trends that will shape the data center industry in 2017?

Brian Kortendick: We see two trends taking shape in 2017 which will solidify data centers as key parts of the IT value chain. The first is the delivery of critical data center infrastructure to the edge. In a practical sense, this means adding data center capacity to points of a service territory that may otherwise have gone unserved, but hold strategic value for content delivery, aggregation, and distribution. When moving to the edge, end users will require increased transparency and software automation to ensure the infrastructure is reacting at the pace of the underlying applications residing at these locations.

The second trend we see is the wider adoption of modular technologies. For most, the benefits of a “just-in-time” approach were known, if not fully embraced, by the enterprise marketplace. In 2016, we saw numerous third party research reports showing the value of a modular design and deployment approach. For example, Technavio concluded that a modular design can result in a cost savings of 30 percent over a traditional data center build. As it relates to service providers (Webscale or colocation) we anticipate that their need to manage variations in power, space, and density will result in embracing modular thereby leveraging the automation and software control that most standardized modular designs offer.

Data Center Frontier: There are signs that cloud technologies are gaining traction in the enterprise sector. How is this affecting the balance of the deployment of enterprise workloads between on-premises facilities, service provider data centers, and public cloud platforms? What will this look like in 2017?

Brian Kortendick: Enterprises across the globe have been tasked with exploring whether moving to a public cloud can deliver richer customer experiences, streamline operations, and/or reduce budgetary spending. While this has resulted in large cloud adoption, we still see readiness of the underlying applications as the most influential factor . For example, a company that requires low latency transactions might benefit from strategically located IT assets rather than a public cloud option. Still another company with sensitive data may elect to keep IT assets local while pushing back-office capabilities to a public cloud. While, a third company may require a re-coding of their applications to work in a cloud environment and therefore may opt to deploy only new applications in a private cloud.

The diversity of applications within an enterprise should result in an IT strategy equally as diverse; the right mix of public cloud, private cloud, colocation and on-premise assets. The common thread for 2017 that we do see across these examples is if providers can standardize around a common data center form factor, providers will offer end users the ability to seamlessly move assets and capabilities their various options.

Our Executive Roundtable looks at the state of the market for Data Center Infrastructure Management (DCIM) software solutions. (Image: BASELAYER)

Data Center Frontier:  How is the pricing and availability of renewable energy impacting your data center business? Are customers being more specific about what types of green power solutions they are seeking?

Brian Kortendick: In the past, sustainability groups were considered outside influencers in the IT and infrastructure decision making process. Going forward we see these groups playing a prominent role early and often in many data center decisions. Renewable energy availability and pricing are now tools these groups use to demonstrate long term environmental impact with short term economic benefit.

PUE will still be an area of focus, but customers are now looking to incorporate higher level green initiatives such as automated peak-saving and load-balancing. All of these green requirements will soon flow down to the colocation service providers, who traditionally have been focused on metrics like PUE.

Data Center Frontier:  What’s the state of modular data center solutions in 2017? What do you see ahead for these solutions?

Brian Kortendick: Modular data center solutions will continue to make gains in the market in 2017. Early market feedback is that greenfield and expansion builds are now required to evaluate modular designs with emphasis on financial and operational ROI analysis when compared to traditions builds. Our market research also indicates that strategic edge and on-premises deployments will increase as companies look for more cost-effective methods to deploy 1-2MW deployments.[clickToTweet tweet=”Brian Kortendick: Modular data center solutions will continue to make gains in the market in 2017.” quote=”Brian Kortendick: Modular data center solutions will continue to make gains in the market in 2017.”]

We anticipate that many industry verticals including telecommunications, manufacturing, content distribution (CDN), utilities, universities, and healthcare will look to modular data centers as an extension of their IT growth strategy. Given the breath of these various industries, we anticipate demand for “turn-key” modular solutions that can be readily deployed and operated by IT or construction groups. Thus, partnerships in these areas will be worth tracking as the year progresses.

Finally, we are seeing strong demand from colocation service providers looking for modular power infrastructure to address power additions to existing facilities. These service providers value rapid and flexible power expansion and are just starting to explore modular power infrastructure as the preferred path forward.