OPINION – Enterprise server rooms will be unable to meet the compute power and IT energy efficiencies required to meet the demands of fluctuating technology trends, states Roel Castelein, Customer Services Director at The Green Grid. Mr. Catelein argues that legacy server rooms are failing to keep pace with new workload types and causing organizations to seek alternative solutions.
Citing the latest IDC research, which predicts a growing fall in the number of server rooms globally, Roel Castelein, says: “It wasn’t too long ago that the main data exchanges going through a server room were email and file storing processes, where 2-5KW racks was often sufficient. But as technology has grown, so have the pressures and demands placed on the data center. Now, we’re seeing data centers equipped with 10-12KW racks to better cater for modern-day requirements, with legacy data centers falling further behind.”
“IoT, social media, and the number of personal devices now accessing data are just a handful of factors that are pushing the demands of compute power and energy consumption, which is causing further pressures on legacy server rooms used within the enterprise. As a result, more organizations are now shifting to cloud-based services, dominated by the likes of Google and Microsoft, and also colocation facilities. This trend is not only reducing carbon footprints, but also guarantees that the environment organizations are buying into are both energy efficient and equipped for higher server processing.”
In IDC’s latest report, ‘Worldwide Datacenter Census and Construction 2014-2018 Forecast: Aging Enterprise Datacenters and the Accelerating Service Provider Buildout’, it claims that while the industry is at a record high of 8.6 million data center facilities, after this year, there will be a significant reduction in server rooms. This is due to the growth and popularity of public cloud based services, occupied by the large hyperscalers including AWS, Azure and Google, which is expected to grow to 400 hyperscale data centers globally by the end of 2018.
“While server rooms are declining, this won’t affect the data center industry as a whole. The research identified that data center square footage is expected to grow to 1.94bn, up from 1.58bn in 2013. And with hyperscale and colocation facilities offering new services in the form of high-performance compute (HPC) and Open Compute Project (OCP), more organizations will see the benefits in having more powerful, yet energy efficient IT solutions that meet modern technology requirements,” concludes Roel Castelein.
About The Green Grid and Roel Castelein
The Green Grid is a global consortium of more than 200 members – companies, government agencies, educational institutions, and individuals – dedicated to promoting resource efficiency in information technology and data centers through a holistic approach. The Green Grid is a global consortium of dedicated to advancing resource efficiency in information technology and data centers with a holistic approach, including all IT, facility, and infrastructure systems.
At the end of 2016, IT expert Roel Castelein was appointed to the newly created role of director of membership services. Mr. Castelein has extensive experience in the IT industry, including strategy positions at Oracle, Microsoft, EMC, and Autodesk, among others. Previously, Castelein worked at The Green Grid for four years as a marketing chair in Europe, Middle East, and Africa, heading thought leadership campaigns and drafting standards, programs, and guidelines in cooperation with the European Commission.
