2010 has been a pivotal year for “greening” data centers.  The drive towards cloud computing and the flood of new digital information has caused mission critical facilities to undergo a true revolution.  As IT continues to get more dynamic, there is a renewed emphasis on reducing complexity, streamlining infrastructure and reducing energy costs.  By managing efficient data centers, companies will gain tremendous top line and bottom line growth, which is the core goal of mission critical organizations in 2010 and will continue to be the major focus over the next decade.

According to a recent report by analyst Pike Research, the IT industry is currently responsible for approximately 2 percent of the world’s carbon emissions – with increasingly complex data centers driving this growth.  Additionally, the EPA’s, “Report to Congress on Server and Data Energy Efficiency,” estimates that energy consumption by servers and data centers doubled in the past five years and is expected to do so again over the next five – to more than 100 billion kWh, at a cost of $7.4 billion annually.

With increasingly stringent government regulations, cutting edge technologies that help data centers reduce energy costs and carbon emissions are essential.  To this end, Pike Research estimates that investments in greener data centers will explode over the next five years – reaching $41.4 billion by 2015.  Currently the majority of data center servers operate at only 4% average utilization (Greening Greater Toronto); therefore a huge opportunity exists for companies to power forward with energy reduction through better design and operation of both IT and facility assets.

Next-Generation Challenges
Given the market dynamics of increasing energy demand, government regulation that penalizes energy consumption, and new technologies, what are the key challenges and drivers that mission critical companies must manage?

In 2010 and beyond, next-generation data centers must become more energy efficient to combat rising energy costs and carbon emission constraints. However, increased computing, the need for lower latencies, and the increased demand for infrastructure redundancy, directly impede a data center from reducing its energy. In addition, as companies move toward cloud computing, energy consumption within data centers will continue to grow and pose a threat to going green.  Moore’s Law states that computing power will double every 18 months; this principle continues to prove true in data centers, which are growing and energy budgets along with them.  Therefore, the mission critical market must continue “to press the envelop” by proactively implementing the latest energy efficient, cost effective technologies.

Going Green:  Predictions and Capitalizing on Transformation
Achieving a green data center is no easy task – and it is more than just minor adjustments to old data center models.  As part of an ongoing transformation, data centers must implement holistic energy management strategies and solutions that not only save energy and money, but also reduce costs across all phases of the facility lifecycle.  The service and technologies need to go beyond standard energy efficiency audits to integrate a myriad of environmental, technical, legal and administrative energy considerations into a comprehensive energy strategy.

In 2011, there are several factors on which companies should keep a close eye:

• Virtualization isn’t going away but rather has become a “megatrend”—and for good reason. Implementing virtualization allows for more efficient utilization of network server capacity, simpler storage administration, reduced energy costs, and better use of corporate capital. In other words: virtualization helps data centers save money, energy, and space. As a result, virtualization technologies such as Cisco UCS and VMware are being implemented throughout many data centers and are growing in popularity.

• Facility infrastructures are dynamic.  As the mission critical space moves towards cloud computing, the entire model of power, cooling, IT and energy requirements becomes a wildcard.  However, to ensure long-term growth, companies must develop infrastructures that are sustainable for at least a decade.  In addition, technology spend is no longer every 3 years, but constant.  Therefore, data centers must learn how to extend cooling and power capacity and retrofit existing infrastructures to meet new IT requirements, while improving energy efficiency and leveraging the benefits of going green.

• IT and facilities will be joined at the hip like never before because both skill sets are critical to a company’s success and a competitive differentiator.  A market has emerged for comprehensive IT management solutions to deliver unified views of the IT and facility infrastructure.  Solutions that can identify and resolve any issues before they bring down core business resources are key.  This requires a closer relationship between facilities and IT professionals – meaning data, tools, and multi-disciplinary teams that work in conjunction to optimize resources and maximize a company’s profitability. In addition, both disciplines need to prove their worth, justify new spend and clearly demonstrate how selected technologies are contributing to the bottom line.

• There is a heightened need for new reporting solutions and certifications.  Because mission critical organizations are investing their precious capital in IT and facilities technologies, new metrics are being implemented that measure results, such as power usage effectiveness (PUE), LEED and Green Globes certifications, and Energy Star ratings for data centers.  This is an initial step.  But it’s only a start.  Companies need to evolve their metrics to fully understand their data center, its carbon footprint and how it impacts profitability.

Conclusion
The next-generation, green data center has thrown companies a curveball, making it more difficult to effectively harness the power of IT and facility resources.  The IT model has changed forcing companies to rethink technology spend as well as energy and power costs associated with these investments.  In addition, companies need to capitalize on virtualization and energy efficient equipment while not breaking the bank.  Therefore, implementing holistic energy management and sustainability strategies is one of the most important but complex activities that data centers will manage in 2010 and beyond.