“The data center lifecycle is shrinking,” says Bob Bauer, Emerson Group vice president. “Aggressive corporate growth plans, along with the use of new, more powerful server technologies are pushing data centers to their limits. Many facilities have the physical space to add more equipment, but lack the power and cooling capacity to support that equipment. The only way companies are going to overcome this obstacle is by designing for higher densities and employing adaptive IT infrastructures that allow greater flexibility to adapt to change.”
The survey posed questions to DCUG members on a variety of data center topics, including power management, precision cooling, energy efficiency, technology implementation and consolidation. One of the major findings of the survey is that 96 percent of current facilities are projected to be at their data center’s capacity by 2011.
Heat and power density are also major IT concerns, according to the survey, with 40 percent of respondents citing either heat density or power density as the biggest issue they are facing. Other issues included space constraints (19 percent), adequate monitoring capabilities (8 percent) and availability/uptime (7 percent). Forty-four percent of respondents also cited either power or cooling as the major constraint on their data center capacity.
Consolidation is also gaining momentum in the industry, the survey reports, with 56 percent of respondents having either completed, or being in the process of consolidating data centers. An additional 18 percent said they were evaluating the option.
The survey also showed that data center energy efficiency is fast becoming a priority in the industry, with 42 percent of survey respondents saying they have either analyzed efficiency or are currently analyzing it. Respondents perceived the greatest opportunities for energy efficiency to be in the areas of cooling equipment (49 percent), servers (46 percent), power equipment (39 percent) and storage (21 percent).
DCUG contains approximately 1,000 members that come together semi-annually to collaboratively discuss the most relevant issues affecting the reliability, availability and cost of operation for mission-critical installations.
