Emerson Network Power, a business of Emerson, released its annual Data Center Users Group (DCUG) “Inside the Data Center” report yesterday. More than 165 data center, facility, and IT managers participated in the survey, which reported these findings:
- Data center criticality is rising. Three out of four respondents said in this year’s survey that the data center is more critical today than in past years. Many of these are large facilities that have had high availability goals for years.
- Power densities across the room and within the rack are increasing sharply. In doing so, they’re pushing facility capacity to the max—and fast. In the last two years, average rack power density has risen from 6 kW to 8 kW. More than 10% of respondents said they will be out of data center capacity by the end of this year, and a total of 68% percent expect to be at capacity within the next three years.
- Despite tight capital equipment budgets, changes to the data center are still planned. Thirty-seven percent of survey participants responded that current economic conditions are impacting their ability to operate or expand their data center. However, in a sign of just how dynamic and critical the data center has become, more than 75% of survey respondents are still planning for changes to take place within their facilities.
- Data center managers are unwilling to compromise availability for efficiency. Data center managers will be taking into account corporate initiatives to improve energy usage throughout the data center; yet, this directive is challenged by the understanding that availability remains the top priority. On a continuum of one (reducing energy usage is main priority) to seven (maintaining high availability is our main priority), 69% of respondents identified a priority level between five and seven in favor of high availability.
- Energy usage strategy still missing. A comprehensive energy usage strategy remains elusive for a majority of businesses despite one in four respondents having completed an analysis of the efficiency of their data center equipment. Only 28% of survey respondents have a documented strategy to reduce energy usage.
The entire DCUG “Inside the Data Center” report is available for download in the white papers section of www.liebert.com.
The DCUG is a group of approximately 2,000 data center, IT, and facility managers founded by Emerson Network Power in 2003. The group meets semi-annually to collaboratively discuss the most relevant issues affecting the reliability, availability, and cost of operation for mission critical installations. The group’s membership comprises executives with a wide variety of IT and facilities management expertise from an assortment of companies, including board member companies Vanguard, Cincinnati Bell Technology Solutions, and JPMorgan Chase, among others.
