Data centres - the next big challenges

Viewpoints: The voices that matter

Tony Day, global director data centre projects, APC by Schneider Electric

'It's doubtful whether governments have the necessary experience or expertise to draft appropriate data-centre legislation; in the UK they are guilty of more operational and security data centre breaches than any commercial organisation I can think of. The commercial sector, on the other hand, has far more experience and knowledge with more than 50 years of success designing, building and operating data centres.

Should data-centre owner/operators be doing more to bring about self-regulatory industry practices? Absolutely, yes. The industry itself should be fully engaged in the development and implementation of regulatory practices for data centres; it has the knowledge and experience to ensure that these are both meaningful and practical.

The data-centre industry is suffering from skills shortages and the situation will become exacerbated as older and more experienced data-centre professionals reach retirement in the coming years. The root problem is that there is no structured system in place to educate people for today's market requirements.

Along with my peers, I have been pressing for some form of global professional accreditation, preferably in the form of a post-graduate specialisation administered and authenticated by the university system. Such an accreditation needs to be independent of existing vendors and commercial organisations. In addition we need technician- and graduate-level education to provide those individuals necessary not only for data centre construction but also the ongoing support and maintenance of these facilities.

If you want to run an efficient facility, it will require the involvement of every discipline – electrical, mechanical and IT. However, it also requires that these traditional silos have a full appreciation of the problems which need to be solved by various stakeholders. This means that, in addition to their own specialisation, engineers will have a recognised foundation course in everything involved in modern data centre design and operation. We need a clear and recognised path to becoming a fully-fledged data centre professional.'

Russell Poole, UK managing director, Equinix

'I don't think greater data centre regulation is inevitable. The data-centre industry provides infrastructure and hosting to those services and organisations. We are one step removed from the provision of the services that hackers are targeting. Our business is about physical infrastructure – not operating social networks or search services. As such, it's an issue that the service companies themselves and the government should address directly.

The biggest external issue that the data-centre industry needs to address is the UK Energy Efficiency Scheme. In October 2010 the government announced changes to the scheme as part of the spending review, most notably the removal of the rebate. This makes the scheme a carbon levy with revenue generated being retained by the government. There are more effective and less costly ways to achieve the government's policy objectives.'

Andrew Gilbert, managing director, Node4

'Two key issues that I see are in relation to power management and security provisioning. In terms of power, there is a shift in users' requirements, wanting more power within a smaller space using high density racks.

With regard to security, as the world adopts more to cloud-based solutions and how they are delivered, data centres will see increased security requirements, allied to demands to validate the service from a chosen provider.

Businesses are increasingly outsourcing their data centre requirements, rather than making their own investment. Building and operating a data centre facility incurs large costs and investment to ensure you have a reliable and resilient facility.

This will be further compounded by cloud based services. Recent headline data-security hacks have increased customers' awareness and prompted them to ensure that they qualify their chosen data centre. They hold critical applications: users must be confident that they are secure, and that they are resilient...

Should data centre owner/operators be doing more to bring about self-regulatory industry practices? Industry standards are the end goal that industries typically look to achieve, but at the same time every data centre has different end-user requirements.

In the future a standard will be developed and adopted, which will require a number of different vendors to get together to agree – always a difficult process, because the larger suppliers want the standards to fit what they already deliver instead of what is best for the industry.

Some forms of accreditation are inevitable, but the varying nature of the many different practices already in place could mean that it could be a lengthy timescale. However, there are already some cross-sector ISO standards that are applicable to many different industries, including data centres.

For instance, Node4 is proud of its ISO/IE27001 accreditation, a recognised standard for information security. ISO standards will remain important until [data centre] industry specific standards are introduced.'

Derek Allen, head of data centre development, Cable & Wireless Worldwide

'More attention should be paid to concentration risks: are organisations aware of how much dependency they may have on any one specific device, be that a server, network, or storage device, or a single location? Is the loss of this resource properly assessed, or could it cause any operational issues or significant financial pain? Stringent assessments and continuity plans need to be in place...

Standards for data-centre qualifications would help individual IT departments make more informed decisions about hiring or selecting suppliers. It would also make these decisions more straightforward. Most data-centre professionals come from varied backgrounds: their skills and experience depend on background and exposure to issues and problems they have solved through their career – but these may not always be realised. After all, the goal across the industry is to design and operate energy efficient sites that are secure, reliable and cost effective and that need appropriate, accredited skills.'

Traffic growth still key to projecting data-centre expansion

BroadGroup Consulting's latest 'Data Centres Europe Report' analyses the issues that have, and will, affect western Europe data centre demand and supply. Demand is represented as something of a 'see-saw' with factors both driving and reducing demand. The projected picture is that data centre traffic – the primary driver for growth – is increasing exponentially year-on year, from 2.714Gbps in 2009 – a 53 per cent increase on 2008 – to 4,415Gbps in 2010. The broader question for the data centre industry, in terms of planning for this data traffic growth, is whether this demand will be managed in-house, or outsourced to third-party data-centre operators.

'There are at least four evident drivers for outsourcing,' explains BroadGroup Consulting managing director Steve Wallage. 'There's the traditional reason for outsourcing – getting rid of a problem. Then consider the fact that managing in-house data centres is becoming more difficult due to various environmental legislations. Third, owning in-house data centres becomes more dangerous due to the risk of environmental (rather than technical) obsolescence – legacy environmental control systems getting too old to keep up with the emerging requirement, but too costly to replace.' Then, Wallage says, there is the fact that third-party data centres have the skills and economies of scale to manage environmental factors more successfully: 'Running data centres is their core business. They are able to bring a broader scope of expertise and experience to bear in keeping pace with emerging demands'. Although the study reveals that the majority of UK data centres remain user-owned, it shows also that growth is moving toward the third-party market.

E&T is media partner for DataCentre Convergence 2011, a practical one-day forum that will provide understanding of the key roadblocks to convergence – and how to overcome them – that is taking place on 4 October at America Square Conference Centre, London EC3N 2LB. Register for this key event at www.datacentreconvergence.com.