Data centers have experienced tremendous growth rates over the past five years, and they now represent the most critical component of the Internet economy. Without data centers, the emerging cloud opportunities for agility and IT efficiency and for increased competitiveness would be impossible to realize.
Data centers involve the end users, operators and service providers, telcos and companies providing national and international fiber connectivity, managed services, systems integrators, content owners and distributors, ISPs, and energy firms, as well as the vast range of supplier companies offering innovative technology solutions. Key city markets in Central and Eastern Europe are now perceived as growth areas for data centers, as metro areas in Western Europe have matured.
Driven by massive growth in content over video, mobile and social media, hosted applications, and the vast corporate and financial capacity needs for storage and security, data center expansion has outpaced other industry sectors even during the recession. Â Many of the challenges of data center growth over the past few years will now confront developers and operators in Central and Eastern Europe (CEE); these challenges include the following.
Modular Data Centers
From containerized solutions to pre-fabricated units, modular data centers appear to be an increasingly popular option available across a range of budgets as well as options for long-term strategy. As modular offerings become increasingly differentiated, vendors are offering best-in-class power usage effectiveness (PUE) and energy efficiency without the higher build-out cost of establishing a fixed data center. With the lowest corresponding capital and operating expenditures in the industry, these solutions also have the quickest return on investment (ROI) and allow for expansion flexibility to align with the growth of business.
Cloud
The cloud is becoming not only the critical infrastructure for the future of IT and delivery of video and content but also for business agility and competitiveness. Given the sustained growth of data-intensive applications, as well as infrastructure virtualisation, the cloud will bring revolutionary service benefits to a wide range of IT-user organizations. Enterprises will need to plan and execute a successful cloud strategy and understand the criteria for selecting a vendor.
Power and Cooling
The Green Grid estimates that 15% of servers in data centers are consuming power but not running any useful application or service. The cost of energy and the source of energy—ideally renewables—present fundamental challenges to all data centers. The converse is how to maximize efficiency in cooling inside the data center to ensure reduction in cost as well as to mitigate the carbon footprint. New methodologies for cooling data centers can provide efficient solutions that reduce waste and cost and that reduce greenhouse gas emissions.
Data Center Infrastructure Management
The data center is becoming an increasingly complex environment with more pressure being placed on data center managers to streamline and simplify operations as well as to optimize space, reduce energy costs and increase operational efficiency. Real-time monitoring of the interdependent and critical systems can be achieved through the implementation of specialized software, hardware and sensors.
Finance and Investment
With an average new fully fitted data center costing in the region of $150 million, funding and investment in the sector is a critical requirement for continued growth. The consulting firm BroadGroup* recently reported that more than $6 billion had been raised globally to fund data centers in 2011 and that the outlook for 2012 suggests this trend will continue.
At the end of February, companies engaged in all these activities will meet in Prague for the second annual regional summit (www.datacentrescee.com).
About the Author
BroadGroup is an international consulting firm providing professional advice, research, publishing and events that inspire information communities. It has practices in data centers, carrier wholesale strategy, IT and telecoms regulation, IT infrastructure, and TMT finance and investment.
*BroudGroup, Finance and Investment in Datacentres.
Photo courtesy of Cea.
