Analysis: Advantages and limitations of wireless data centers

For data center operators, the idea of ​​a wireless data center sounds like a dream. Eliminating the physical network cables that typically connect servers can greatly simplify the setup and management of data center equipment.

In addition, wireless networking technology continues to advance, with today's wireless networks able to transmit more data over longer distances than ever before, making the idea of ​​a wireless data center increasingly attractive.

Unfortunately, this doesn’t mean that most data center operators will abandon physical network cables anytime soon. Despite real use cases for data center wireless networks, and despite advances in wireless technology, they are still limited.

What is a Wireless Data Center?

A wireless data center is one that provides connectivity between servers via wireless networks rather than physical cables. In other words, a wireless data center uses the same type of wireless connection that most consumers use in their homes, connecting devices to a wireless router.

It’s worth noting that people think that wireless data centers may not be able to completely get rid of wired network cables. Unless you install a wireless network interface in every server and other device that needs to connect, you may still need to run Ethernet cables within the server racks, but, for example, you may have a wireless router in each rack to achieve wireless connectivity between server racks, and then distribute data packets within the racks via Ethernet.

We should also note that wireless data centers are still wired for power. While wireless power is a thing, the technology is not yet advanced enough to be practical in data centers, where ultra-reliable, high-capacity power is critical.

Advantages of Wireless Data Centers

So far, few data centers have deployed wireless networks. The trend of data center networks is still closely related to physical cables.

But by switching to a wireless approach, data center operators may gain important benefits:

• Fewer cables: Cables take up a lot of physical space in traditional data centers, and figuring out which cables go where can be a daunting task. A wireless data center simplifies this challenge.
• Network deployment: Because wireless networks do not require physical cables, deploying new networks is faster and easier using wireless technology.
• Higher capacity: The number of connections a wired network can support is often limited by the physical connections available on routers and switches, whereas wireless networks are not subject to this limitation.
• Lower costs: Since wireless networks do not require cables, they can reduce the cost of deploying networks for data center operators.

In short, wireless data centers offer a more convenient and flexible approach to networking at a lower price.

Challenges of Data Center Wireless Networks

On the other hand, wireless data centers are also subject to some important limitations:

(1) Network throughput

One of the biggest limitations is that wireless networks have lower bandwidth capacity than most wired networks. The latest wireless standard, 802.11ax, supports maximum speeds of less than 10 Gbps, a fraction of the hundreds of gigabits per second that wired Ethernet can transfer.

For data centers that require high network throughput, wireless networks are not fast enough.

(2) Security

Modern wireless network security has come a long way from the days when most networks were either unencrypted or relied on easily cracked encryption algorithms such as WEP. But the bottom line is that wireless networks are less secure than wired networks because anyone in the physical vicinity of a wireless router can intercept and potentially decode packets flowing through a wireless network, which is more difficult to do with a wired network because you need access to the line to sniff the packets, encountering the security controls of the physical data center in the process.

Beyond that, someone who wants to disrupt data center operations could do so by jamming the wireless network, a type of denial of service attack that wireless data centers are vulnerable to.

(3) Network interference and performance issues

Even if no one is intentionally interfering with wireless networks, wireless data centers can experience poor connectivity due to interference between networks using the same frequencies. In general, packet loss, poor latency, and other performance issues tend to be higher when using wireless networks, which are not as reliable as wired connections.

So when does a wireless data center make sense?

The challenges above do not mean that a wireless data center is impossible. In the right circumstances, a wireless approach may make sense, at least for certain data center equipment.

For example, if you need to connect servers that are located far from each other on a data center floor, and the workloads running on those servers do not require particularly high network throughput or reliability, setting up wireless links between those servers may be simpler and more cost-effective than laying cables.

Likewise, wireless networks can provide good connectivity for surveillance systems and other ancillary equipment that helps power a data center, which generally don’t require much bandwidth and can tolerate the occasional lost packet or connection.

in conclusion

However, wireless networking may not be a practical solution for the large number of servers in a large-scale data center. This may change over time if wireless technology continues to improve (although wireless technology with sufficient performance to meet the needs of most data centers has not yet emerged).

As a result, most data center operators can’t expect to ditch network cables anytime soon, but at least in some cases they may be able to simplify network management by leveraging wireless connectivity where it makes sense.