Capacity management software start up Aria Networks has pledged to bring disruption to the world’s data centers and telcos as the two very different sectors continue to converge.

Chippenham based Aria was recently named the Best Early Stage Investment prospect by the UK Business Angels Association, in the category of disruptive technology. The award, presented by the UK Technology Strategy Board, recognized the potential for Aria’s proprietary artificial intelligence to reshape both the data center and telecoms worlds, said Nigel Walker, the board’s head of access to finance.

Aria’s technology uses artificial intelligence that aims to make network operators and data centers make more efficient use of their computing, storage, memory and networking assets. It brings together the disciplines of both network function virtualization (NFV) and software defined networking (SDN), Aria’s CTO Jay Perrett told DatacenterDynamics. This is necessary because telcos and data centers are on a collision course and there is a massive challenge ahead if the technology sector is to avoid a clash of cultures, said Perrett.

“Telcos and data centers are two very different camps, with different languages and different ways of doing things. Some policies and solutions mean completely different things either side of the divide, but they are converging into one virtualized domain, “ said Perrett.

As data centers become more commoditized, they will have a lot to learn from the telecoms world, which has a longer history of making profits from services with very slim margins, he said.

“Data centers are used to throwing capacity at problems, whereas the telcos have developed a culture of sweating their existing assets and pulling together disparate resources to make one cohesive whole,” said Perrett.Many data center managers fail to see the big picture and limit their chances of being able to provide end to end services. As a result, they are unable to provide the level of granularity, in billing, that has become a necessary survival skill in the telecoms world, said Perrett. “I’ve lost count of the number of data center managers who say their responsibility doesn’t go beyond their four walls of their building,” said Perrett, “that will have to change.”