A Brief Look at the Present 2021 was a rebound year from 2020, when infrastructure spending was stifled by 10% due to an industry-wide cash flow shortage sparked by the pandemic. The demand was there. The money was not. In a 2021 report on digital infrastructure, real estate analyst CBRE found that new data facilities broke ground at a 42% gain over the year prior, and data center providers made… Read More
Worldwide, the data center industry is estimated to consume between 200 terawatt hours (TWh) and 500 TWh of electrical energy every year. That means that, annually, it uses between about one per cent to three per cent of global power output. In 2021, data centers have been found to be responsible for 2% of the world’s CO2 emissions which is equivalent to the entirety of the global airline industry. This represents… Read More
The importance of saving electricity consumption in data centers has increased, and the main reason is the rising price of electricity and environmental issues. In large-scale data centers populated with thousands of servers, an enormous amount of power is consumed every minute of every hour, costing hundreds of thousands of dollars every month—and millions every year. It goes without saying (but still bears mentioning) that this is a major point of… Read More
E-waste is the major focus of data center decommissioning, but more thought needs to be given to mechanical and electrical equipment such as generators. When it comes to the end of life and decommissioning of a data center, the focus often turns to IT Asset Disposal (ITAD) and what to do with IT hardware. This is important as there are numerous compliance requirements around IT hardware containing sensitive information. The… Read More
Data-center owners and operators face increasing complexity and operational challenges as they look to improve IT resiliency, build out capacity at the edge, and retain skilled staff in a tight labor market. Meanwhile, use of the public cloud for mission-critical workloads is up, according to Uptime Institute, even as many enterprises seek greater transparency into cloud providers’ operations. These are some of the highlights of 2021’s Global Data Center… Read More
Automation won’t resolve the data center staffing crisis…at least not yet These are challenging times for managing data centers that are also opening up opportunities for IT professionals. The lines between development and operations keep blurring. The latest report on data center staffing from Uptime Institute finds skills shortages continue and AI is not expected to reduce requirements in the near future. As demand for digital capabilities grows, a shortage… Read More
Many factors can precipitate the need for a data center migration – growth beyond current capacities, mergers and acquisitions, hosting provider performance, real estate changes, local data center economics, density requirements, staffing considerations, green initiatives, etc. A data center migration is one of the most critical and complex IT tasks organizations are faced with today. The margin for error is near zero and the move timeline is… Read More
Information Technology innovations and the Internet of Things (IoT) are fueling data creation. Today, there are approximately 10 billion IoT devices in the world, and that number is expected to hit 75 billion by 2025. With so many connected devices, it is no wonder the amount of data created each day continues to spike upward. Recent estimates predict IoT-generated data will reach 73.1 zettabytes (ZB) by 2025—a 422% increase… Read More
THE AFCOM CHAPTER AWARD WINNERS 2020 had some amazing contributions of individuals and local AFCOM chapters who rose above to continue to advance the data center industry and keep AFCOM communities connected. Alicia Schap, AFCOM’s association manager, announced the winners at Data Center World in Orlando last week. The Volunteer of the Year Award recognizes a member whose membership, and local and national contributions and involvement, have made a… Read More
As data centers get smarter, the workforces running them are struggling to keep up. While the industrywide ideal is for so-called dark data centers — meaning, centers without any on-site staff — this brave new reality, for the moment, is still aspirational and years away. In fact, industry leaders say the flood of information coming from smart equipment and sensors needed for artificial intelligence and automation created a widespread need for employees capable of actually… Read More
Technology changes quickly.
