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Guest RoomBy Tate CantrellShaping the Data Center Industry in 2011Over the past few years, one can’t talkabout data centers without including thetopic of greening the data center throughimproved efficiency. By moving toward afocus on efficiency, data center operators throughout the worldhave found ways to improve reliability and reduce costs byfocusing on green data center strategies. As we move forwardinto the tweens of the new millennium, there are a few areasthat will shape the data center industry.First Focus – Savings for the BusinessThe first task for the data center management team will be toincrease savings by better integrating the data center strategywith the business mission. The efficiency gains brought forthin recent years by the industry emphasis on PUE and otherenergy-centric metrics did not always yield optimal savingsincreases for the business. CIOs will continue to improve theirmodels of data center operations. They will also strive to betterunderstand how the data center generates revenue for thecompany and how the data center draws down on companyresources through operations.Second Focus – Improve Business FlowThe first step to efficiency within the data center is the creationof a production platform for deployment of companyapplications. The trends in recent years of virtualization andcloud deployments have provided many forward-thinkingCIOs with excellent tools that can be used to further businessmissions. One limitation to the utilization of these tools is inthe automation of deployment and management of the systems.Without creating automated services, CIOs will in effectcreate yet another layer of management and another group ofhands and eyes that are required to keep the data center servicesup and running. By focusing on the tools that will allowfor automated deployment of virtualized and cloud-enabledsystems, CIOs will bring the computing resources right to thefingertips of the business strategists and the business integrators,thereby keeping headcount down and reducing opportunityfor manual interruptions on the assembly line.Third Focus – Conserve Capital ExpendituresWhile no one likes to dwell on it, the last few years have notbeen kind to many businesses. Many companies that overbuilt in2007 aren’t around anymore to tell their tales. The CIOs of 2011are survivors of the recessionary era, and they are savvy aboutretaining capital for critical business interests and M&A activity.However, CIOs who were active in the 2002-2005 businessclimate know that if you get behind the innovation curve, youwill become yesterday’s news even more quickly than you wouldby over spending. The solution is a search for a balance of capitalcontrol and flexibility in design. By choosing outsourced solutionsCIOs will be able to tap into resources that deploy quicklywithout stranding important capital resources. And for in-houserequirements, companies will look for commodity solutions thatintegrate seamlessly between the company systems and those ofthe upstream infrastructure providers.Forth Focus – Manage Security RisksWhether it be outsourcing infrastructure, integrating withpublic cloud technologies, or improving the mobile capabilitiesof the workforce, the CIO has many options for technicaladvancement of the corporate IT strategy. But it is ultimatelythe management’s responsibility to adapt the infrastructure totake on these technologies without risking the established bestpractices for business-critical topics. Security tops the list. Foroutsourced data center solutions, the security team will needa provider that has a clear SLA and open book accounting ofsecurity principles that it implements while delivering the outsourcedservices. For public, private, or hybrid cloud and evenmobile computing solutions, the security teams must developnetwork security solutions that will be able to connect existingusers with the new resources and tools. Without forwardthinking on security solutions, many of the great ideas of 2011will be completely inaccessible to the revenue generators.Fifth Focus – Regulation of Data CentersHere is a trend that isn’t going to stop any time soon. Useany other industry as a guide, and you will see that regulationwill increase over time until a steady state is achievedand the fluctuations become the gradients of political willwithin the established governing bodies. Federal regulatorsare just now exploring ways in which to regulate the energyefficiency of data centers (EnergyStar and ASHRAE90.1, for example) and the trend will not stop within thefour walls of the data centers. The Green Grid recentlyreleased their concept for a CUE, a carbon usage effectivenessmetric for the data center. Provided that this takesoff in a way similar to the acceptance of the PUE metric,we can expect that data centers will become directly tiedto the regulatory efforts to control carbon. Britain hasdelayed its flagship program by a year or two, and theUnited States cannot seem to get a law passed throughCongress, but carbon regulation is coming. And while efficienciesare improving in everything from chips to chillers,data centers are very much an energy consumer and willbe affected by energy and ultimately carbon regulations.So the question is: How is the green data center relevantto the general trends of focus within the data center industry?The relevance begins at the energy usage itself andworks its way back from there. A truly green data centersolution is a solution that protects the CIOs IT strategyfrom the impact of potential carbon legislation. By preparingthe IT network infrastructure for outsourcing, theCIO can take advantage of existing data center productsthat provide a regulatory hedge while not over-committingcritical business capital. Once the location and the energysource are network-ready and secured, the CIO can goabout filling the data center – physically and virtually –with the automated tools that are most efficient and bestintegrated with the company’s business mission. ITTate Cantrell is CTO at Verne Global (www.verneglobal.com).GoTo:6 INTERNET TELEPHONY ® February 2011 Table of Contents • Ad IndexSubscribe FREE online at www.itmag.comGoTo: