by Shane Henson — December 6, 2013—Data center energy costs and equipment efficiency is once again a top-of-mind issue for data center managers, according to a fall survey of data center users from global technology and engineering firm Emerson Network Power, a business of Emerson focused on maximizing availability, capacity and efficiency of critical infrastructure.
The fall installment of the company’s biannual survey polled members of the Data Center Users’ Group (DCUG), an association of influential data center, information technology and facilities managers, and captured input from more than 150 respondents across North America. The questions covered a variety of data center topics, including energy efficiency, data center monitoring, capacity constraints, third-party colocation providers, and heat and power density.
As with the DCUG spring 2013 survey, the fall survey results show that energy efficiency, availability and infrastructure monitoring are foremost on the minds of data center professionals, which is not surprising given that data centers can consume up to 100 times more energy than a standard office building, according to the U.S. Department of Energy’s Federal Energy Management Program (see FEMP’s “Data Center Energy Consumption Trends).
When asked to identify their top three facility/network concerns, 44% of respondents cited energy efficiency, making it the leading response to the question for the second time in the last two years for the fall survey. Availability (43%) and adequate monitoring and data center management (41%) were second and third on the list of top concerns this fall. Data center consolidations (24%) continued to be a growing concern, landing at sixth on the list, right behind heat and power density.
According to Bob Miller, vice president of global solution sales for Emerson Network Power in North America, the results of the fall 2013 survey show that data center managers continue to focus on optimizing efficiency and maintaining or increasing availability to meet growing demands within today’s budget constraints.
“As the complexity and criticality of the data center continues to increase, data center professionals are increasingly turning to monitoring and data center infrastructure management tools to provide the greater visibility they need to plan for growth and support changes to the data center without compromising availability, and while ensuring customers’ needs and corporate goals are met,” he said.
The trend toward growth is reflected throughout the survey. While 28% reported no limiting factor on their organization’s ability to accommodate growth, 38% cited a lack of capital expenditure to either build new facilities or invest in infrastructure systems. When asked about equipment purchases for the next 12 months, 72% plan to purchase racks and cabinets, while 63% plan to upgrade or purchase monitoring software, and 43% and 41% plan to purchase cooling and uninterruptible power supply (UPS) systems, respectively. A full 41% reported moving at least part of their operation to colocation or hosting providers.
Additional results include:
- 53% believe their existing data center capacity will suffice for three years or less.
- 37% reported implementing rooftop air-handlers, while 28% have implemented evaporative cooling.
- 56% reported already implementing transformer-based UPS, while 21% have implemented transformer-free UPS.
- The average power density per rack was 6.3 kilowatts (kW), up slightly from 5.9 kW in the spring 2013 survey.
- The top operational and efficiency-related metrics being measured in the data center are temperature (88%), power utilization (82%), humidity (66%) and cooling utilization (65%). Over half (56%) of respondents currently measure power usage effectiveness.
