Gartner Conference & Data Center Pulse

Hello,


I got a chance to speak on a Keynote panel at the Gartner Data Center conference last week in Vegas and was able to talk up Data Center Pulse as part of the discussion. The panel was about IT & Facilities working together and "The Future of the Data Center". I really enjoyed the conversation and got great feedback from the crowd. We had over 2000 in attendance and at least a dozen came up to me after the show to ask questions. I also got a few follow up emails from folks who were there, but couldn't stick around to talk.

This is a fascinating time for those of us interested in Data Centers and I'm pretty sure my enthusiasm and passion for all things data center came through in the discussion.

Key points from my discussion:

- The data center needs to be treated as a system. The IT infrastructure and the building infrastructure are tied together now more than they ever have been. You can't work on the shell without considering the impact to the IT gear and vice versa.
-Treating the data center as a system means that your IT and Facility staff need to be in lockstep with eachother.
- Filling the gap between traditional facilities roles and IT operations staff with a person who understands IT enviroments and can translate the IT system requirements into appropriate facility design and management is a real opportunity for most companies.
- PUE is a decent rating to use until we have something better. However, if you're being asked by your execs to provide a "PUE" for your data center be careful to couch in appropriately so you don't over promise. PUE is a moving target. If you say that my PUE is 1.6 today and then you do a server consolidation only to find out your PUE is now 1.8 you might find it hard to explain to management how you could be less efficient after having done a consolidation.
- Work with your local power company on ways to get rebates and incentives for projects that will reduce your power draw (i.e., virtualization or air containment). In some cases you can actually get the project cost covered by the power company.
- Doing the right thing from an energy or environment perspective doesn't always have to mean throwing away money. In our current DC project we actually saved 500K in building costs by going with a more efficient air management/containment strategy.
- We often take 3 - 5 years to implement "proven" technologies in our data centers due to our generally risk averse nature. However, our data centers are such huge consumers of power and have such a large impact on our environment I believe it's our obligation as owner/operaters to stay in front of what's available to help us minimize that negative impact. As a community we need to find ways to reduce that time window between a new solution being "proven" and actually being "adopted" by Data Center folks.
- Probably the most controversial point made was that there really was very little need anymore for new data centers to be built to Tier III or higher. With the broad availability of mature virtualization and data synchronization solutions (among other technologies) the ability to protect your production applications by moving them from site to site quickly to avoid disasters means that having high cost Tier III or Tier IV space will soon be a thing of the past.

Thanks for dropping in. Until next time....

Another Data Center Pulse Group is Born!!!!

Hi Folks,

We've discovered over the last 2 months since Data Center Pulse (DCP) was founded that the demand for groups that focus on the future of the Data Center is high. As such, Dean and I decided to create a new group that anyone with Data Center interest can join "Data Center Pulse: Industry

The focus of this group will be to help provide immediate feedback to the original DCP group and also to solicit answers from DCP on questions posed by the industry.

Please read my preceeding post for more information on our DCP group. Also, you can expect to hear more from Dean and I as we further develop the framework for the two groups to work together.

Until next time,
Mark

Data Center Pulse is having an Event!!!!!

Well, things are really starting to pick up with Data Center Pulse (DCP). Our membership has passed the 310 mark, and we've got over 21 countries and 180 companies represented. Dean and I have been very busy getting the word out. The fact that we’ve managed to grow the community so quickly only proves the theory that Data Center folks aren’t being served effectively by only attending the current set of industry events. The membership of this group represents a significant portion of the industry spend on data centers and the talent that makes those same data centers work. That talent and the associated spend should be more effective when applied collectively through a forum like DCP. Dean & I have a deep belief that the future of the data center will involve considerable change for some time to come and we’d like Data Center Pulse to have a big part in how that eventual future develops. We’ve all benefited from conferences and organizations (Gartner, Data Center Dynamics, 7/24, Uptime, AFCOM, IDC, & others), and I will continue to participate in them. However, this group creates a new outlet for those of us who wish to participate in shaping the future of the data center.

Event Schedule
With the excitement and interest around DCP continuing to grow, Dean and I decided it was time to hold our first event. The date is Feb 17 & 18 (1 1/2 days) and it will be held somewhere in Silicon Valley. To spread the word about the conference we’ve emailed all our current members, if you aren’t already a member you should visit our website to learn more about the group and the upcoming event.

Event Content and Goals
We will be working with the DCP members to define discussion tracks and we're also taking questions from vendors. If you’re a vendor partner and would like to participate, please complete the survey on our website. Your questions will be reviewed for potential inclusion in one or more of the conference tracks. This should turn out to be an excellent chance for everyone to have their voice heard.

Getting the Word Out
Please continue to invite friends and spread the word. Our power is in our collective experience and brain power, backed by our potential spend with our vendor partners.

I Love This Stuff
Personally I’m really looking forward to this event. I've spent the last 20+ years working in, managing, or building Data Centers. So this opportunity to meet members of DCP and to collaborate on ideas and strategies on the future of the data center is something that I wouldn’t miss.

Updates on my recent activites

Suffice it to say, I've been BUSY!!!!

We're in the middle of building our new Data Center in Washington and I've been busy with Dean Nelson developing the opportunities associated with Data Center Pulse (datacenterpulse.com).

A quick note on the Data Center project:

It's a big deal for us. The first two spaces are roughly 16K SF each and we have first right of refusal to three additional spaces. Total potential DC floor space is about 80K SF.

We're doing some pretty cool stuff from a building and MEP (Mechanical, Electrical & Plumbing) perspective and of course our virtual infrastructure will play a big role in site efficiency as well.

I can't say what the PUE rating will be yet, but we're implementing significant monitoring in order to capture detailed real-time data about how the environment is operating. I'm hoping for a PUE of <1.5.

The project is in the final phases now and as with most big projects some things have gone well and some haven't. We have several groups involved in the project and generally coordination is excellent. However, there are some peripheral teams that are fairly detached from the day to day project activity and this has caused a few headaches (lesson learned; don't ever allow anyone to talk you out of having a single leader with direct ownership of all resources).

Mostly though things are going as well as can be expected. We're under budget, and on target from a date perspective.

Some of the cool features include but aren't limited to:
- Hot Aisle containment
- Grey Water system
- LEED certification (external and internal)
- Power monitoring from the street to the rack PDU
- Comprehensive BMS system
- Hot air from the data center will be used to heat the office areas
- and more

There's still much more that can be done with a data center. However, this one should be a very nice facility considering the budget and original objectives.

Data Center Pulse (datacenterpulse.com & LinkedIn groups)

This is growing like a weed. We're now at almost 300 members and people continue to join. We have lots of ideas for how to take "positive" advantage of the information generated by all the smart folks in the group. Including doing videocasts that get posted to Datacenterpulse.com and striping content from discussions and developing recommendations or strategies from it for posting on the web site. Our primary goal here is to influence the industry in a positive way. We believe the only way for us to influence the industry and our peers effectively is if we can stay vendor agnostic. We also believe there's no way for us to stay agnostic if we accept funds from vendors or if we allow sales or marketing folks on the board.

If you're interested in joining you can get to the group via the web site (datacenterpulse.com) or by going directly to Linkedin and requesting to join there.

DC Pulse Update

Our goal is to build this global community to 1000 strong by the end of 2008.

The more DC professionals we can add, the better. To achieve this goal, we could use your help in recruiting for this community. If you would like to participate, please request to join the Data Center Pulse Group. Then, plan to bring it to the table... :-)

All others can reach this community even if they are not in the group. You can submit questions to be posed by forwarding them to Mark Thiele, (mthiele@vmware.com) Director of R&D Business Operations from VMware or my DCP co-chair, Dean Nelson, (dean.nelson@sun.com).

Data Center Pulse: The Community

Hi Folks,

It's been quite a while since my last post, my apologies. I've been extremely busy with the building of VMware's new state of the art facility in Washinton and haven't had the chance to maintain my personal blog.

The primary reason for this post though was to mention a new Community that Dean Nelson (Sun Microsystems) and I have created on Linkedin (Data Center Pulse).

http://www.linkedin.com/groups?gid=841187&trk=hb_side_g

If you work in or around data centers and aren't a consultant or sales person please check out the new group and request membership.

Thanks,
Mark

The Data Center is the Computer: Step 5 of 9

Step 5 of my 9 step process:
Step 1: Measure
Step 2: Develop an action plan
Step 3: Prioritize Opportunities
Step 4: Create "Program of Improvement" with ROI and timeline
Step 5: Obtain approval for your initial project (from the Program of Improvement plan)
Step 6: Implementation Strategy
Step 7: Implementation Partners
Step 8: Communication
Step 9: On-going Operational Improvement based on a "Total Improvement Plan"

Obtaining Approval:
If you've done most of what's required in steps 1 - 4, the approval process should be a snap. The Executive Summary of your work to-date should include the following information

• Need & Vision: What were the driving factors behind this project and what's the short and long term vision post project completion.
• Benefit: What will the benefit of a successful project be for the business? It's very important to spell the benefits out in business terms; how will this reduce the bottom line costs of IT, enable high availability and improved Disaster Avoidance and Recovery Plans (DARP), provide for rapid system deployment and allow for IT to report on the availability of "Data Center" capacity as opposed to individual application infrastructure capacity.
• Risks: Risks of project failure and the risks if the project isn't approved. Be realistic here, most execs will applaud your honesty.
• Timeline and Resources: Be very clear and detailed with what you think the timeline is (in bite sized chunks) and about the resources (People, money, etc) that you'll need.

Don't be afraid to show the proposal to more people. If it can't stand the light of day, then you're probably doing something wrong. Be prepared to backup and justify the project with your personal conviction. In the end, most execs want to know how you really feel about the project and whether you're passionate about it. Lastly, don't be surprised if you have to repeat yourself. It's quite common to have to present projects 3 or 4 times to the same people before they really begin to understand and buyoff on it (they actually start evangelizing it themselves as their idea).

until next week....

Step 4 of my 9 step process:
Step 1: Measure
Step 2: Develop an action plan
Step 3: Prioritize Opportunities
Step 4: Create "Program of Improvement" with ROI and timeline
Step 5: Obtain approval for your initial project (from the Program of Improvement plan)
Step 6: Implementation Strategy
Step 7: Implementation Partners
Step 8: Communication
Step 9: On-going Operational Improvement based on a "Total Improvement Plan"

Now that you've prioritized your opportunities you need to create a "Program of Improvement". This process can be something as simple as a high level project plan to something much more comprehensive. My recommendation is to build your plan based on a combination of factors;

Complexity -

Are there geographic issues, how many partners do you have to work with, are there corporate business related drivers that need to be accommodated (product release or end of quarter, etc.)

Cost vs. ROI -

How much do you have to spend in time and money to recover how much? Building out a solid proposal for action will also help ensure you have the before and after picture covered. The before and after is critical to getting the credit and recognition your team deserves.

Team size and skill sets -

If you have a small team and relatively simple systems architecture than you can probably get away with a simple plan that covers primary milestones and critical path issues. Don't forget that "investigation/planning" and "communication" are the most important parts of any good project plan. If you have a larger team and systems with multiple external dependencies then you really should put together a detailed plan that accommodates the majority of potential risks.

Recognition and rewards -

Plan for breaks in the action. It's very important to celebrate your successes before moving on to the next opportunity or challenge.

Communicate, Communicate, Communicate -

You can't over communicate your plans. The more people understand about what you're doing the more support and understanding you'll get in return.

Until next week >>>

Step 3: Prioritizing Opportunities

I'm on Step 3 of my 9 step process:
Step 1: Measure
Step 2: Develop an action plan
Step 3: Prioritize Opportunities
Step 4: Create "Program of Improvement" with ROI and timeline
Step 5: Obtain approval for your initial project (from the Program of Improvement plan)
Step 6: Implementation Strategy
Step 7: Implementation Partners
Step 8: Communication
Step 9: On-going Operational Improvement based on a "Total Improvement Plan"

Now that you've got an action plan and you're ready to start improving your infrastructure and saving money of the bottom line, how do you decide where to start. The first key is that regardless of what you decide to work on first, the end solution should fit into your larger solution framework. In other words, don't change out your server platform without determining what is appropriate for your entire enterprise once the entire project is complete.

Other considerations you should make before getting started:

• What's the initial investment cost vs time to implement and end result benefit?
• What's the complexity of the activity (will staff need training or will lots of consulting be needed) vs. the time span and ROI?
• What fix will help make subsequent fixes easier to tackle?
• Validate your technology strategy and know how all the parts will fit in your final architecture

Now it's time to start picking the low hanging fruit:

• Server consolidation will probably be the first and best option. You can make the changes will little to no impact to production environments and it's fairly low cost as far as investments go. Also, when you've made some headway in the consolidation of your servers, you might find that working on your other areas of opportunity just got easier.
• Example: If you have inefficient cooling it's very difficult to make serious changes to your cooling strategy while your Data Center is running at or near full capacity. If you've reduced your server count by 50% or more the work will become much easier.
• This process is fairly complex so don't be afraid to bring in someone with infrastructure virtualization experience. The benefits you're looking for from virtualization won't be realized if you don't have the appropriate network and storage infrastructure to support it.
• Depending on whether you're working in existing DC space or have the luxury of building into a new space your opportunities and ability to work on them will vary. The benefit of a new facility is that you can build the appropriate infrastructure from ground up without having to worry about customer impact.
• Additional potential opportunities:
• Dramatically reduced power consumption through airflow management of your DC space. This could be something as simple as plastic curtains that seperate hot and cold.
• Determine the efficiency of old electrical gear some transformers could be costing you 5%+ through inefficiency. This inefficiency directly translates into additional heat that you have to extract from the room. UPS units are another great place to look. If you have high power costs you might be able to justify UPS replacements on the power savings alone.
• Reduce your network footprint and the associated infrastructure of cable and cable management.
• The list goes on.

As mentioned in "Step 1" be sure to capture all the information you can about your current environment before embarking on the change. Having measurements of your space, power, cooling, people & hardware (networking, storage & servers) overhead before your project starts and after it's complete is crucial to getting the recognition your team will deserve. You might even be able to get Public Relations to commit some resource to helping document the transformation. Remember to include your local power company as well, they will probably be more than happy to provide your company a rebate for any power savings you can demonstrate as a result of your project.

Until next week. Happy computing.

Mark

Step 2: Develop an Action Plan

Please don't consider this an exhaustive playbook, but rather a high level "strategy"

Developing an Action Plan is critical to defining your goals and objectives for the "Data Center is the Computer" project.

The Action Plan should include an overview of what you expect the end state or vision to be (What does done look like). While I'm not a big believer in being "finished", it is always wise to have a target that is measurable in it's completion.

Ensure you've captured baseline information (previous post) that will allow you to report and market your improvements.

Create a team - The data center and it's systems aren't generally owned by any one person, you're going to need the help of the following folks;

- Application managers

- CIO

- CFO

- Facilities

- Green or Sustainability team

There are unique ways of gaining each groups support, you can't use the same message with the CFO that you used to win over the application team.

Each of these groups has a stake in the current environment and will either put a drag on your project or facilitate it moving forward, but it will all depend on how you get them involved.

Review your environment for opportunities - My first recommendation here is to run something like VMware's Capacity Planner against your environment to obtain up-to-date utilization of servers. This utilization can help drive your choices for consolidation and virtualization and the information can be an argument winner.

Review your network infrastructure - How will your future environment be supported by the current network. In the long run even a fairly minor improvement in server utilization rates will overcome any short term costs for network upgrades. You should consider the technologies that your team is most suited to support and or have the most flexibility for adapting to a "Virtualized" environment. At a high level you should be considering 4GB or better connectivity so that you can get the most value out of a network consolidation and improve the performance of consolidated infrastructure.

Review your storage infrastructure - If you don't have a SAN solution in place, now is the time to consider one. The benefits of having a SAN back end for your virtualized environment are overwhelming. You don't have to do Fiber Channel, but you really do need to have the SAN.

The strategy here is not a simple one, but if approached correctly it will create a great starting point on your road to Nirvana. To me Nirvana is when your data center is truly managed and run like one large computer with lots of mostly commoditized components.
- Your front end is expandable/retractable processor and memory capability that can be measure as a total, not by individual servers or applications
- Your middle is a single network that handles basic ethernet and FCoE or iSCSI
- Your back end is a virtualized multi-tier storage environment that allows you to move servers from one location to another dynamically and to allocate space based on the total available, not on some pre-determined value. Your storage environment should also allow for the remote replication of data and largely tapeless backups.

Steps in getting closer to "The Data Center is the Computer"

Step 1: Measure
Step 2: Develop an action plan
Step 3: Prioritize Opportunities
Step 4: Create "Program of Improvement" with ROI and timeline
Step 5: Obtain approval for your initial project (from the Program of Improvement plan)
Step 6: Implementation Strategy
Step 7: Implementation Partners
Step 8: Communication
Step 9: On-going Operational Improvement based on a "Total Improvement Plan"

Step 1: Measure

Develop a baseline of what you’re using today:
- Measure total power delivered to the Data Center
- Divide total power by the power used by your computer infrastructure to come up with your current PUE (Power Utilization Efficiency)
- This initial PUE baseline will be what you measure any design improvements against

- Get your local power company involved.
- Many power companies are offering rebates and incentives for changes or upgrades that result in the reduced use of power
- It’s important to get the power company involved before your kickoff any project

- Meet with your corporate Green Team and or Sustainability Manager
- If your company doesn’t have a Green Team or Sustainability Manager it might be an opportunity for you to help get the team or role started

- Run a measuring/monitoring tool against your infrastructure to determine how your hardware is being utilized
- A good tool I’ve used is VMware’s Capacity Planner. The main reason I like it is because it doesn’t require an agent. However, the output in generates is extensive and extremely informative. You can obtain complete inventory of your environment all the way down to the number of Emulex cards or dual core Opterons you have
- Regardless of which tool you decide to use, the information you gather will give you specific opportunities to shut systems down, improve sharing and identify opportunities for further/new virtualization

It will surprise and amaze you when you realize that before buying anything you’re able to shutoff or otherwise repurpose 10-20% of your existing gear.

Data Center Efficiency - We're still just scratching the surface!

I hope my title is correct, because I love the opportunity that technology brings to the world, and I'd hate to think that at some point we might have to decide between a safe planet and more data centers.

What is a data center? Based on the following facts It's really a computer;
- A shell like a PC case is the building that houses your systems and protects them from the elements
- Power (much more of it) coming in from the utility, just like the plug you put into the wall for your PC at home
- Large HVAC systems protect a data center from getting overheated, just like your fan on your PC
- There's storage in the data center, there's memory in a data center and there are processors and applications there, just like in your PC.....

So what's different?

On your PC you have a group of applications sharing an environment and controlled through a single interface and a minimal number of input devices. The data center has many separate devices that often have just one application running.

We need to make the computing resource in a data center more like a single large computer with replaceable components. The opportunities associated with having a "Computer" for a data center (I coined the phrase "The Data Center is the Computer") are so numerous I'll have to create several posts to try and do them justice. Here's a short taste of what I'm thinking.

- Data Center managers and their managers should be able to say "I've got XX.X percentage of DC capability left" in response to a question from the CFO on current capability.
- When the DC manager is asked to add a new application to the environment his next step would be to determine the performance requirements of the application. He would then compare the requirements against his available data center capacity. If he determined that the new application would take him over his threshold of "available" capacity then he would simply buy the appropriate amount of disk, storage or processing required.


The above model is very different from today where a data center manager would have to look for a specific architecture of hardware and software to install the new application. He would also have to determine what extra equipment he needed to buy to accommodate additional “SAN” or “Core” network capacity and extra servers for “test & dev”. We must get to the point where the data center is truly converted to a large resource of "brain" (processing), "heart" (1 network) & "stomach" (storage).

The benefits of the "Data Center is a Computer" model are numerous. Lower cost of ownership (you reduce the overhead associated with running many silos of servers that are supporting single applications) and you make the resources you have optimized for the amount of compute power you actually will use.

I’ll write more on the opportunities and provide some thoughts on how you can get to this “Nirvana” in upcoming posts.

Bridging the Gap between DC Operations & Facilities

Data Centers always seem to be what I come back to. I guess I have a strong opinion about how a resource as big and expensive as a data center should be handled.

What do I mean by "Bridging the Gap?"

Recently more and more Bloggers & Analysts have started jumping on the bandwaggon of the need to develop staffing roles that fill the gap between what the average Data Center Operations manager knows and what a Facilities person knows. I've been worried about this problem for some time. In October last year I was able to develop and justify a new position "Global DC & Lab Space Efficiency Manager". Funny how these things work, but within days of hiring this person no one could figure out how we had managed without it.

We're several months into the project to build a new Data Center and this new role has been crucial to filling the void of information between the traditional IT & Facilities roles. Following are some of the areas that have proven this Gap theory;
- Carbon Emissions measurement
- Outside Air or Water Economizing for HVAC systems
- Finding efficiency improvements in the electrical system
- Identifying current DC standards initiatives in Europe & the America's (EU DC Standards & Green Grid are examples)

Any or all of the above are things that might normally be missed or ignored in a Data Center project. Yet, when you're building a facility that will eventually have 30-40 MW of power and 20,000 plus systems any small improvement means real dollars and a greener Data Center.

I'll be speaking about these issues in several upcoming events.
- Uptime Institute (Orlando April 27th - 30th)
- Emerson DC User Group (Tampa May 1st)

I'd love to hear your thoughts on this issue. I will surely be writting more in the near future.

New Information about the Role of the CIO

Since my posts about the role of the CIO (http://leadershipinit.blogspot.com/2007/12/what-should-ceo-look-for-in-cio.html) there is an increasing body of information that points to my suggestions as being correct. While I'm generally not one to gloat, I do believe that if you're on the fence relative to the CIO question, this new information might help sway you.

Video Interview done by the WSJ "Role of the CIO"
http://link.brightcove.com/services/link/bcpid1127798163/bclid572028407/bctid1448130649

Blog entry regarding "Role of the CIO"
http://www.greenm3.com/2008/03/wsj-article-how.html

There are a large number of stories and articles about why the role of the CIO is critical, but I liked both of these because they point to combination of IT being critical and to the key qualities of a CIO.

Enjoy the reads.

Building a New Data Center (continued)

If you read my last post on this subject you know that we're building a fairly large new facility and we're trying to do it in a hurry.

Some of what have we done so far:

Defined the appropriate Org model with roles and responsibilities

Created a BOD & PRD (Basis of Design doc & Program Requirements Doc)

We're making excellent progress on internal project plans and contruction plans. My recommendation on Project plans is you definitely need them, just don't make them too long. For a project like this there will be an enourmous number of line items, so it's best to consolidate and or split the project so that each plan can be as focused and easy to follow as possible.

We have begun working with the Executive team to determine their requirements relative to public messaging on this new Data Center, along with any expectations they might have for Showcase or Green options.

We have our partners for construction & MEP all selected, and we've got the basics of building layout and electrical design done.

We've established our unique Tier strategy (we aren't using a standard industry Tier model it's a hybrid)

Lastly we've established what all our critical path (long lead time) items are and have factored them into the project timeline. In some cases we made pragmatic (read: less than the best) decisions in order to ensure we stay close to our original delivery schedule.

Some additional keys to consider in a project startup as big as this;


Team design; who should be on the team is more than just skill and availability, where possible you should also consider team dynamics.

Roles & Responsibilities; each of the roles in a project org should be very clearly defined and communicated to the entire team.
Budgeting; the project team must have access to the budget in order to make the appropriate decisions relative to changes in design or facility use requirements. Things can change fast with technology and when opportunity presents itself you need to be able to act fast.

Building a New Data Center

It's been way too long since my last post. I've been consumed with travel, planning for a new data center & being sick.



We just kicked off a new Data Center project. The Data Center will be roughly 75K SF to start with capacity to grow to 125 SF of usable space. As you can imagine this is a huge undertaking and everyone wants a piece of the action. Internally we have lots of concerned folks who feel the need to have their voices heard, externally the "partners" have come out of the woodwork with offers of "help".



Like most companies our Data Center project hasn't started under the most ideal circumstances. We didn't have the appropriate level of initial focus by staff and we're under the gun to get the job done as quickly as possible. Sound familier. Normally this combination is a recipe for getting less that you bargained for.



First recommendation:

- Always make certain you understand exactly what you expect from this new Data Center. Is it more capacity, will other places be consolidated there. What Tier should it be and for what reasons. If you're just planning on adding capacity and growing organically into the space, then you'll want to ensure that folks using systems from this new location understand the trade-offs associated with having their systems remote (assuming the new DC is far from home).

- Break down the budget very carefully, but be prepared to make sacrifices in one area so the money can be used for effectively somewhere else.

- What considerations should you make about being Green? Depending on your organization (what Green message do they have if any?) you may need more or less focus here. On the other hand their are looming compliance/regulatory issues that could bite you if you're not prepared. The San Francisco Bay Area has just decided to levy a tax on air pollution caused by local companies. While the current penalties are relatively small, you can bet that the penalties will change if emissions aren't reduced.

- In the EU your companies carbon foot print is becoming an issue. This could very well happen here too.



There are a thousand considerations and hundreds of options available when building a data center. Recent technology improvements in the Data Center combined with public awareness of whether your company is green or not make this both a great time and a scary time to build a new data center. Most DC managers are loath to take any type of risk when building a new DC. They are more likely to use what they view as "tried & true", which you can read as "90's technology". This means that you'll build a DC that isn't ready for today's needs, let alone the requirements sure to be there five years from now. As a result of this general reluctance to "experiment" with the DC, I believe the time has come for DC managers to be required to take some sort of certification program related to managing, owning & improving DC facilities. This certification should focus on industry initiatives and technologies that can improve DC efficiency, make your DC greener and lower your costs, all while allowing you to put more equipment in the same space.



More on this topic at a later date.