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
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How to Plan for a Successful Data Center Migration
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
Real-Time Data Demands the Edge
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
Silverback’s Al Nichols for the AFCOM win!
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
Can AI solve the data center labor shortage?
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
Five Reasons Cloud Repatriation Should Be Part of Digital Transformation
Digital Transformation Beyond the Cloud Five or ten years ago, digital transformation strategies often centered around cloud migration. Today, most businesses have adopted the cloud, but the results haven’t always aligned with expectations. To advance along the digital transformation path, forward-thinking organizations might consider cloud repatriation. This approach allows businesses to correct earlier missteps in their digital transformation efforts. Here’s why cloud repatriation should be integral to modern digital transformation… Read More
How Data Centers Will Be Impacted By Microsoft’s 2030 Carbon-Free Energy Plan
Taking another climate moonshot, Microsoft has set out to crack a problem that will require a complete rethink of the world’s electric grids. Microsoft has made another big climate pledge. The company recently stated that it will work to power all its offices and data centers around the world with carbon-free energy 100 percent of the time by 2030. This is a very different – and much larger – problem… Read More
How Data Centers are Breathing Life into Abandoned Buildings
The trend in data center construction has been to construct an entirely new building, designed to meet all kinds of demands, like maximum power and air conditioning efficiency. But alongside these greenfield developments, there have been some creative exceptions to the rule: old, abandoned structures which are given a new, modern life. Over the last few years, there has been an effort to convert abandoned buildings in densely populated urban… Read More
AI for data center cooling: More than a pipe dream
Today, artificial intelligence can be found all around the data center – helping manage and protect the network, filtering alerts, and moving workloads. However, the industry has been slow to apply AI to the problems of operational technology, rather than IT. And specifically, to the realm of the data center cooling system, sometimes responsible for as much as a third of the overall power consumption of a server farm. You… Read More
When Will Liquid Immersion Cooling for Data Centers Become Mainstream?
Microsoft’s Tiny Data Center Liquid Cooling Experiment Is a Big Deal. It’s even bigger than that time its researchers sunk a submarine-like data center in the ocean. It’s running production workloads. But the rack of servers submerged in engineered fluid inside a Microsoft data center in Quincy, Washington, is still somewhat of a science project, similar in its purpose to Project Natick, the hermetically sealed computer-filled capsule the company’s R&D… Read More
