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Tag: datacenter

  • Research: Bringing Cloud into the Datacenter Transformation

    “Datacenter transformation is a stark reality facing most customers in the Asia/Pacific region,” says IDC.

    Based on its recent datacenter research, the ageing and somewhat inefficient datacenters that were built seven-ten years ago are struggling to keep up with the current technology – leading to high operational costs, poor utilization levels and increasing complexity.

    “However – the report says – the current economic environment has led many CxOs to mandate CAPEX restrictions, which has forced CIOs to look for ways they can do more with the same.”

    Datacenter transformation is a broader discussion than cost and capacity, and one which aims at building an IT architecture that is more agile and adaptive for the business. IDC states that this need is driven by the increasing pervasiveness of IT, which is driving businesses to use the same or even more IT than before- even when the IT budgets are not expanding.

    “This has caused a dilemma for the CIO, and they are forced to think about new ways to build their IT fabric such that its more elastic, flexible and agile,” the company says.

    IDC says it has discussed this type of IT within the scope of what we called as the dynamic IT infrastructure.

    However, transforming the current IT complexities to reduce the rigidity has been an arduous task for most IT heads, and one that they have continued to battle with over the past few years. The arrival of cloud computing has revived the hopes of CIOs to consider a new way of attacking this old problem, as IDC claims.

    IDC believes that over the next few years, we will see increasing interest in cloud computing from organizations. But these organizations will have to start planning on building a more dynamic IT framework as a precursor.

    According to the research, this is especially true for enterprises that are considering to build their own private or internal clouds. The current chaotic IT environment with its complexities and redundancies will pose a huge challenge in migration, and indeed this has left many CIOs stumped about where to even start.

    "There is a lot of pent-up demand for revamping and building new datacenters that have been postponed due to the ongoing recession" says Avneesh Saxena, Group Vice President for Domain Research at IDC Asia/Pacific.

    "Meanwhile the demand for IT has not gone down and CIOs worry about coping with the turnaround as and when it comes through. This has to lead to the emergence of a adaptive and elastic IT framework – whether inside or outside the organization," he added.

  • AFCOM Survey: Most Data Centers Not Ready for Cyberattack

    Significant findings of AFCOM’s 2009/2010 Data Center Trends survey reveal that though threat of cyber terrorism is real, it is not being adequately addressed by the world’s keepers of the most confidential financial, military and personal data.

    Survey also reveals that despite hype around cloud computing, only 14.9 percent of data centers have deployed cloud solutions to date – and it shines a new light on the fate of mainframes.

    In addition, it reveals the government is behind its private industry counterparts in terms of greening initiatives.

    Meanwhile, it shows that the mainframe may be losing its place in worldwide data centers, as servers become more capable.

    And cloud computing, despite the hype, hasn’t pushed beyond 15 percent acceptance at this point. In comparison, 73 percent have implemented virtual processing.

    Data center greening

    The survey re-iterates that greening of the data center is no longer just a concept – it is actually taking place, and on a large scale, with 71.3 percent of all respondents indicating they are actively engaged in greening initiatives at this time.

    And while 71.3 percent are, in fact, engaged in greening, only 42.2 percent have a “formal” greening initiative.

    According to respondents, the most important results they have experienced as a result of implementing green measures are in power efficiency, 60.8 percent report they are using less power and 51.4 percent have implement cooling efficiency strategies. In addition to power and cooling efficiencies, 11.5 percent also report a significant savings in water usage.

    Data centers & cyber terrorism

    Data center professionals must be well-equipped to handle and respond to cyber terrorist attacks, but according to AFCOM’s survey, there’s considerable room for improvement.

    Respondents revealed that 60.9 percent of all data centers worldwide officially recognize cyber terrorism as a threat they need to deal with, but only a little over one-third (34.4 percent) have included it in their disaster/recovery plans, which would include their best defense plans if attacked.

    Only one in four, or 24.8 percent, has addressed cyber terrorism in their policies and procedures manuals and only 60.2 percent have a written policies and procedures manual.

    Meanwhile, less than one in five, or 19.7 percent provide any cyber terrorism employee training. On the positive side, however, 82.4 percent report that they do perform background security checks on all potential new employees, another solid defense against cyber terrorists.

    Data center consolidation

    As the economy suffers, more companies have traditionally looked to consolidation as a method of saving money. The economic downturn we are experiencing today is no exception, with 62.1 percent of all respondents either already in the process of consolidating one or more data centers, or seriously considering it.

    More than half of respondents (52.1 percent) plan to relocate their newly consolidated data center to another existing facility, or build an entirely new one to accommodate the additional requirements.

    Emerging technologies

    According to the survey, the technologies with the highest levels of adoption in today’s data centers are: virtual processing, implemented by 72.9 percent of all respondents, Web applications (70.4 percent), automation (54.8 percent) cluster computing (50. percent), and cloud computing (14.9 percent).

    Surprisingly, in addition to the slim 14.9 percent who utilize cloud computing, this technology has been considered by an additional 46.3 percent, but never implemented.

    “Our analysis shows that data center managers need to develop more comprehensive cyber terrorism policies, and get more aggressive in greening, particularly in government agencies where greening lags behind private industry. Finally, it’s time to decide where the mainframe is still viable and needed, and where high-end servers can do a more efficient job,” said Jill Eckhaus, CEO of AFCOM.

    AFCOM is the data center association that represents both the IT and facilities side of the data center. Respondents, part of AFCOM’s 4,500 member data center sites, represent 27 countries, 83 percent in the U.S. and 17 percent overseas; 60 percent are responsible for Information Technology, 31 percent Facilities and 9 percent represent other roles in the data center

    AFCOM 2010 Data Center World will take place March 7-10, 2010 at the Gaylord Opryland Resort & Convention Center in Nashville, TN.

  • Transformational Impact of Server Virtualization on IT Infrastructure

    A recent IDC survey investigating server virtualization deployments in various organizations reveals that the technology is transforming server, storage, and networking infrastructure and even more so the way their datacenters are and will be built and managed.

    "The accelerated adoption of virtualization is making the technology a crucial factor, changing buying behavior and deployments of customers throughout Europe," said Nathaniel Martinez, program director for IDC’s European Enterprise Servers group.

    According to him, customers are not only rapidly exploiting new and emerging virtualization functions such as high availability and VM mobility, they are also slowly adapting their infrastructure to virtualization requirements.

    “This in turn drives the acquisition of richer configured servers, expansion in fiber channel SANs, increased spending on iSCSI-based storage, and a boost in NAS adoption in large hosting environments," Martinez added.

    The survey also suggests that many users are pushing their virtual server environments to the limits, which is causing several problems, such as virtual server sprawl and storage I/O bottlenecks.

    22% of all survey respondents claim to have had I/O problems within the past six months and this number jumps to 40% of respondents that fit into the early adopter category.

    "Costs are obviously an important factor, but many storage administrators are looking for ways to ensure that storage supporting virtual server environments can meet current and future performance needs," said Eric Sheppard, program director for IDC’s European Storage service.

    The study, Status of x86 virtualization in European Organizations is based on a survey conducted among current server virtualization users in the U.K., Germany, and France.

  • Digital Realty Trust Launches Pod Architecture Services

    Digital Realty Trust, the wholesale datacenter provider, has launched a new offering called POD Architecture Services(SM) to provide design and construction services to companies that own or want to own their own datacenter facility, and would like to leverage Digital Realty Trust’s datacenter expertise and resources.

    This new product offering will enable customers to license Digital Realty Trust’s datacenter design packages, benefit from the Company’s procurement supply chain, and utilize the Digital Realty Trust team’s proven Gating Process(SM) for enterprise control throughout the construction process.

    Michael Manos, DRT’s Senior Vice President of Technical Services claims that these services fill a gap in the market between a pure do-it-yourself approach and leasing wholesale space from an outsourced provider. “Many companies want to own their own datacenter, but they do not have the internal skill set and experience to successfully tackle a construction project with the scope and complexity of a major datacenter facility”, he said.

    By using our POD Architecture Services(SM), customers can utilize everything from the company’s blueprints to its relationships with vendors – as well as the expertise that the manager brings to the process.

    Digital Realty Trust’s fee-based POD Architecture Services(SM) also enable companies to license Digital Realty Trust’s Turn-Key Datacenter(SM) design package, including its proprietary Design Engineering Guidelines, schematics, one-lines, BOMs, project/site basis and airflow modelling.

    “As customers increasingly adopt modular approaches to datacenters that speed time to market and lower upfront costs, blueprints such as those from Digital Realty will be in demand in both hosted facilities as well as customers’ own facilities”, said Michelle Bailey, Research Vice President, Enterprise Platforms at IDC

    Digital Realty Trust owns, acquires, redevelops, develops and manages technology-related real estate. The company is focused on providing Turn-Key Datacenter(SM) and Powered Base Building(SM) datacenter solutions for domestic and international tenants across a variety of industry verticals ranging from information technology and internet enterprises, to manufacturing and financial services.

  • Green Datacenter Regulations Concern For Corporate Strategies


    Senior datacentre professionals in Europe are increasingly concerned about the potential impact of green regulations on corporate datacenters, according to a survey.

    A similar study carried out in the US found that significant shifts have occurred over the past 12 months in datacenter strategies – but concern for regulation is a major driver in 2009.

    The findings in Europe and the US came from two studies carried out on behalf of datacentre provider Digital Realty Trust.

    In Europe, the independent survey of senior datacentre professionals revealed heightened concerns about government regulation in the datacentre industry.

    Nearly 70 per cent of companies surveyed reported that they are extremely concerned or very concerned with the potential impact of Green regulations on data centres.

    Jim Smith, CTO of Digital Realty Trust, said the survey clearly showed a high level of concern about the impact of Green regulations on datacentre facilities.

    "While the new Carbon Reduction Commitment (CRC) regulations in the EU address a number of questions about the new rules, new concerns about how companies will achieve compliance have arisen," he said.

    "That uncertainty is reflected in these results in terms of how the new rules will impact operations, finance and customer relations."

    Those taking part in the survey were restricted to a minimum of director level in IT, MIS, IS or finance and they needed to represent companies with either EURO 500M or GBP 500M annual revenues or 2,500 plus employees.

    They also had to be responsible for managing a datacentre, implementing a new datacentre, executing contracts for a new datacentre or expanding existing datacentres. The survey was concluded at the end of March by Campos Research.

    Other findings from the European study include:

    • 60 per cent of surveyed companies now have Green datacentre strategies in place
    • Over half (57 per cent) felt there was now a clear definition of what constitutes a Green datacentre
    • Energy efficiency is viewed as the key criteria for a Green datacentre
    • While many mention a Green strategy as a factor in choosing a datacentre provider, no company emerges as a Green leader in the survey
    • Among companies that have a Green datacentre strategy, the qualities they are looking for in datacentre providers include:                           –

                               – Knowledge of current regulations and emerging Green standards

                               – Experience building facilities with LEED or BREEAM certification
                               – The ability to meet ISO 14001 and Green Grid standards
    • More than half (55%) would reject a provider with no Green strategy

    While energy efficiency was seen as the dominant characteristic of a Green datacentre, recycled materials, carbon issues and transportation were nearly equally important to those surveyed, who also included targeted cooling, efficient UPS and metering equipment among their "wish list".

    ISO 14001 and Green Grid were thought to be the leading standards for certifying a Green datacentre.

    Companies who have already adopted a Green strategy said that the most important goal of their strategy was in reducing energy costs, but other benefits including climate change, customer image, cost of compliance and updating datacentres were also important.

    Despite the challenges facing the global economy, 58 per cent of respondents had increased their focus on Green initiatives and 69 percent revealed that carbon credits were part of their strategy.

    The US study showed that concern for regulation is a major driver for green datacenter efforts in 2009.

    The survey indicates that significant shifts have occurred over the past 12 months in corporate green datacenter strategies.

    It, too, was based on a detailed survey of senior decision makers at large US corporations who are responsible for their companies’ datacenter and green IT strategies.

    Smith said that what dominated last year’s study was the need for clearer standards and best practices for green datacenters.

    "There has been significant progress in that area over the past year, including the publication of green datacenter case studies by industry leaders, the development of green building standards specifically for datacenters, and widespread efforts to educate datacenter professionals on the practical application of that information," he said.

    "We’re not there yet, but progress has been made, which is reflected in this survey.

    "By contrast, what dominates this year’s study is companies’ concerns about potential government regulation and how that would impact datacenter operations."

    Key findings of the US study include:

    • 69 per cent of survey participants said they were extremely or very concerned about government regulation.
    • 81 per cent of survey participants said that carbon credits are now part of their green IT strategy – compared to only 18 per cent in 2008.
    • 53 per cent said that the industry now has a clear definition of what makes a datacenter green, compared to 82 percent in the 2008 survey who said that there was no clear definition.
    • 73 per cent of survey participants identified "energy efficiency" as the key aspect of a green datacenter.

    Smith said that concerns about potential regulations are driving companies to look closely at their datacenters and accelerate the process of implementing green initiatives to increase energy efficiency.

    "We applaud these green datacenter initiatives because they result in lower power usage and lower costs, even when companies take very basic steps toward designing and operating their datacenters in a greener fashion," he said.

    "However, it is important to note that some of the concerns about government regulation may not be warranted, given the good faith efforts that government agencies such as the Department of Energy and the Environmental Protection Agency are making to work with the industry and advocacy groups like The Green Grid to spur self-management of this issue.

    "We believe that collaboration between the government and datacenter professionals is the most effective approach to addressing datacenter energy efficiency."