Notes from the Consultant's Jungle

Tomorrow will be the second DataCenter Dynamics (DCD) conference to be held in Atlanta, Georgia.  The title for this year’s event is “Designing for Demand,” and addresses changes in the data center marketplace in terms of the impact that “the cloud” is having on the vision of the mission critical facility. On the agenda are [...]

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We’ve talked about wind power for data centers and mission critical facilities, and often the subject of solar power comes up in those same conversations.¬† Dedicated commercial solar installations generating more than a megawatt are rare, and as such have very limited contribution as an energy alternative for data centers.¬† There is growing interest though, [...]

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TelX hosted a financial services roundtable event at their Financial Business Exchange (FBX) data center in Clifton, New Jersey. The panel of industry experts (and TelX customers) was moderated by the TABB Group’s Kevin McPartland, and introduced by TelX CEO Eric Shepcaro. Mr. Shepcaro introduced the event by giving his own personal background about why [...]

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A quick perusal of a typical contemporary IT project portfolio will show a strong representation of projects dependent upon, or directly related to the data center.  Changes in the growth and scale of data processing, applications, content storage, data communications, risk, compliance, and maturity of IT governance are all in some way connected to the [...]

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When recently interviewed for a magazine article, I was asked about Green initiatives by data center operators.  There are lots of innovative techniques for reducing power consumption in data centers, and lots of ways to apply renewable resources.  The fact of the matter is that for the data center operator, some of the options are [...]

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As I’ve watched the momentum of the Cloud, it’s caused me to reflect upon earlier discussions about data center physical security.  It’s long been my opinion that physical security will soon emerge (or re-emerge) as a top issue in data center planning, since businesses and consumers alike are increasingly reliant on the data and transaction [...]

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The challenge in using green energy alternatives such as wind or solar power in data centers is power density.   Data centers consume a lot of power with respect to their physical footprint, so they need very large solar arrays or large wind turbine farms to generate the necessary power for the facility.  Consequently, the amount [...]

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Many firms have gone looking for core/shell property with the intent of renovating these structures for use as a data center.  These projects are very capital intensive, and in many cases the benefits of having the existing structure are almost nil when viewed in the context of the broader project plan and budget.  However, many [...]

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Well, now I know why I’ve never come out on top whenever I buy one of Jim Cramer’s recomendations. In a recent (10/22/2009) Mad Money piece on CNBC, Jim Cramer used the Equinix acquisition of Switch and Data to make the point that data centers are obsolete.¬† In his diatribe about why anyone with Equinix [...]

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When launching a new data center build project, where the data center will be located is a fundamental issue. There are many factors in deciding where the data center will be, but all of these factors can arguably be consolidated into two issues- Risk and Cost. We mention risk in terms of Risk Management. Even [...]

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