What I have always loved about technology is that what we take as given is not necessarily going to be a given in 3 or 6 or 12 months time. A great example of this is the constant evolution of Data Center technology. The most incredible growth and change has happened in the past five years in this area of technology, with growth and change only accelerating.
A great exampe of this is Data Center cooling. It was a given that data centers were noisy cold places, air conditioned to a level 70 degrees F. This is no longer the case. The new data centers operate in the 80 degree range F. It also used to be that air conditioners were decoupled from the racks of servers and drives, but this is no longer the case either. Now air cooling systems (using water) are directly connected to rack equipment and cool the hot air exhausted by the racks immediately upon exhaust.
Cooling technology is just one example, there are dozens more with innovations in power, data networking, switching, and routing.
There is a great video reflecting a Google Data Center in South Carolina that gives us a peek into the latest Data Center technology innovations. Check it out: