Data Center Survey Results

May 14, 2013, Uptime Institute Symposium, Santa Clara, CA—Matt Stansberry from the Uptime Institute shared the results of an on-going survey of data center managers. The available results represent one thousand responses, mostly from the US. Other areas are being added as the survey is translated to other languages.

Respondents indicated that 82 percent are managing more than one site. 58 percent are in enterprise environments and 70 percent added or renovated their data centers within the past 5 years. One common metric for this industry is cost per MW of space. 40 percent are spending less than $5M / MW, 25 percent between $5M and $10M, 14 percent between $10-15M, 7 percent from $15-20M, and the balance over $20M per MWatt.

Although the spending is going up for buildings and equipment, overall budgets are shrinking as companies are cutting the number of sites under direct supervision. Now, budgets are paying for 3rd party services and 63 percent of respondents are spending at least 10 percent more on external services. The challenge is to prove that a new or renovated data center is worth the expenses compared to the costs of outsourcing in North America.

The evaluations are for cost per performance at the enterprise. One issue is that most IT managers do not report their costs to the C-suite. Almost half of the third-party suppliers report costs monthly, and gather even more cost data for their internal consumption. In comparison, only 40 percent of the IT managers report to a c-level executive and most don’t give regular reports on costs. Now, for many IT departments, getting the operating cost data is a matter of personal survival, get the numbers or lose your job to an outside service provider.

One area is the cost of energy. Reducing consumption is very important, but only 16 percent of IT managers pay the power bills. In 80 percent of the companies, all power costs are attributed to the facilities manager. As a result, there is little incentive for the IT managers to save by raising data center efficiency.

In the big data centers, those with over 5 thousand servers, power utilization efficiency (PUE) is the key metric. The larger companies are moving towards “green” operations with certifications for LEEDS, or Energy Star going up. The big data centers have the facilities, people, and capital to make the significant changes needed for higher efficiency. In these big data centers, technology adoption is twice that of smaller companies.

The bigger and more progressive data centers are installing data center infrastructure management (DCIM) tools as the driver for capacity planning and management. 38 percent of users have DCIM tools installed and 17 percent plan to buy these tools within the next 12 months. An additional plan to buy the tools in the next 24 months, while 31 percent have no current plans for these types of management tools.

While there is good interest in modular data centers, the reality differs. 47 percent of IT managers are interested in the idea, but only 9 percent have adopted the actual hardware and pre-built systems. Modular data systems promise flexibility, quick delivery, and a pre-configured data center in a box, boxes may be too much of a one-size fits all solution that doesn’t quite meet the needs of most data center managers. Just because some big third-party suppliers are using modular systems doesn’t mean that the systems are applicable for a company’s specific needs.