(WEB HOST INDUSTRY REVIEW) — The energy, space and technology problems currently facing data center managers are set to worsen in 2010, and data center and IT managers need to find pragmatic ways in which to deal with them, according to IT research and consulting firm Gartner (www.gartner.com).
“Energy costs are the fastest-rising cost element in the data center portfolio, and yet data center managers are still not paying sufficient attention to the process of measuring, monitoring and modeling energy use in data centers,” Gartner research vice president Rakesh Kumar said in a statement. “They need to realize that removing a single x86 server from a data center will result in savings of more than $400 a year in energy costs alone.”
Gartner analysts will be examining the key issues facing the data center industry at this week’s Gartner Data Center Conference (http://www.gartner.com/it/page.jsp?id=851712) in Las Vegas. According to Gartner, the Data Center Conference offers the latest actionable insights and best practices in all areas that will continue to face data centers in 2010 — cloud computing, virtualization and real-time infrastructure, servers and storage and business continuity and disaster recovery.
In anticipation of the conference, Gartner has made a number of recommendations for IT managers to help them limit their costs, starting with rationalizing hardware, which involves taking out underused or old systems. Gartner clients have reported that rationalization and consolidation programs have resulted in 5 to 20 percent fewer servers being deployed.
Managers should also consolidate data center sites into a smaller number of larger sites. They can also practice optimize energy and facility costs by, for instance, raising the temperature of the data center to around 24 degrees Celsius (75.2 degrees Fahrenheit) to reduce the level of cooling required, or using outside air as an alternative to air conditioning where possible.
Another cost is in labor, which is still the single largest cost element for most data centers, accounting for as much as 40 percent of overall costs.
Also, Delaying the procurement of new assets is a necessary step for all data center managers, especially as a server’s useful life often exceeds its amortized life.
According to Gartner research, there is no single, standardized method to account for data center costs, however, IT managers can define a chart of accounts that specifies all the cost elements that constitute the overall cost and the key portfolios or categories that are part of that cost.
Additional information is available in the Gartner report “Q&A: Critical Issues Facing Data Center Managers.”
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