Special Feature

Energy crisis in DC to continue in 2010

A recent Gartner survey found that the current DC challenges faced by organizations will worsen in 2010 and unless something is done immediately, those running the facilities will have their hands full with serious monetary and operational challenges. By Rajendra Chaudhary

Looks like 2010 won't exactly be a breeze in the life of a data center manager, at least the findings of a recent Gartner survey seems to insinuate the same. According to Gartner's latest findings the energy, space and technology problems currently facing most data centers will worsen in 2010 and data center managers will need to apply all their wisdom and dexterity to get a grip on all these problems.

Not enough is being done

According to Gartner survey the above mentioned issues will continue to plague users in 2010, and those managing data centers will need to find pragmatic ways to deal with them. Rakesh Kumar, Research Vice President, Gartner and the author of the report is of the opinion that the cost of running data centers will increase considerably in 2010 unless organizations take some corrective measures immediately. This will include the energy costs, infrastructure cost, and people cost. Additionally the pressures associated with capacity expansion and effective resource utilization will further complicate matters for the data center managers.

"Majority of data centers that were set-up a few years ago are already running full capacities and in most cases there isn't any more space that can be allocated to add to those capacities," said Kumar. He continued, "It is a global phenomenon not unique to just one specific geography. Organizations world over are currently struggling with data center management challenges and it is those in-charge of matters who will have to take the lead in addressing some of the challenges."

Based on his argument on conversations with a number of data center managers and CIOs (including many Indian CIOs) Kumar said that they aren't doing enough to curb the trend.

"Despite being aware of the issues, most are turning a blind eye to the problem. While some blame the adverse economic climate and lack of funds, others attribute the lack of efforts to organizational indifference towards the data center issues. However, we feel that it is nothing but an abdication of the responsibility. You can blame the unfavorable economic situation all you want but as far as we are concerned the buck stops at the CIO's table," opined Kumar.

He further cautions that if they do not act now there could be a situation where the cost of running a data center may simply get out of hands for many organizations and they may not even be able to adequately support new IT projects in the future.

Measure every major cost component inside DC

The cost of running a data center is the biggest challenge. One can only attempt to bring down this cost if manager is aware of the various cost dynamics associated with operations in a data center environment. Although there is no single, standardized method to account for data center costs, it is recommended that users define a chart of accounts that specifies all the cost elements that constitute the overall cost and the key portfolios or categories that are part of that cost—electricity or energy costs for instance.

It is no secret that electricity tends to be the biggest cost item in a data center. Not only this but electricity costs are the fastest rising cost element in the data center portfolio and therefore it becomes absolutely crucial that sufficient attention is paid to the process of measuring, monitoring and modeling energy use inside data centers. However, the unfortunate reality is that managers often have little or no information on how energy is used in their data enters. Most people don't know what's coming in from the power supply and they surely don't know how it's being distributed across the different servers or storage or network devices.

"What they need to perform a basic energy audit. Here all they need to do is simply meter energy consumption at the basic levels such as the energy coming in, the energy in the power distribution unit, power consumed by servers, storage and like. By getting the relevant data over a period of time and applying some calculations companies can easily measure the energy efficiency of their data centers," informed Kumar. Similarly there are other cost items that CIOs need to be aware of pay adequate attention too. These include facilities cost, infrastructure costs, and people or labor costs. CIOs need to provision for the effective monitoring of these costs as well.

Be careful when refurbishing the data center

Many businesses with older facilities are often tempted to put in some repair work to extend the life of their data center investments. Now this may not necessarily be such a bad idea. However, Gartner suggests that organizations tread the path cautiously to avoid further complications. For example many businesses have data centers that have been acquired over many years through business growth and they may not be in the most ideal locations—for example, some might be in the cities where labor costs are high. Companies need to evaluate the location of the data center in terms of labor rates, cost of energy and facilities and weight against security risks.

Similarly the life span of refurbished data center is another equally important consideration. Organizations have to decide whether or not the site is large enough to accommodate growth, given the investments required to refurbish and the long-term scenarios that the organization has for data center servicing provision. The refurbished site must provide at least five years of capacity (physical, electrical and networking) to make the project worthwhile, said Kumar.

Also, there will be some structural work that organizations will need to put in when dealing with old data centers. New facility components are expensive, but the real problem is in integrating new products in an existing building and with existing components. The survey recommends that companies focus on the technical problems of integrating new facility components into an existing building, as well as evaluating whether it's possible to keep the data center in action while renovations are carried out.

"Organizations also have to be realistic in terms of the future capacity planning. If their data centers have life of say 18 months left and if they don't plan adequately the time will fly past soon. So they have to do some degree of forward planning for example say over 2-3 year period because it takes that long to make some of these changes," added Kumar.

It is almost a case of in order to save money you have to spend money. Some of the measures proposed by the research firm such as rationalizing the IT or consolidation of the data center sites or measuring energy consumption levels-calls for significant amounts of investments. However, Kumar said that this is something that has to be done, now before the organizations run out of time.

— Rajendra Chaudhary