RESEARCH NOTE
Publication Date: December 17, 2007
Majority of Data Centers in Production are
Not Equipped for High Density Operation
Survey shows that while new data centers are being built, many companies’
‘newest’ data centers are more than four years old, and their low density
specifications may shorten the entire data center lifecycle
Introduction
The data center is a mission-critical part of any organization. As the demand for service availability, uptime and
data management increases the pressure on existing data centers, organizations are realizing that their
infrastructure cannot support the demands of today’s equipment.
TM
This Aperture Research Institute (ARI) survey shows that data centers are aging, with over a third (38%) of
responding organizations admitting that their newest data center is over four years’ old. These older data
centers are ill-equipped to cope with the intense power and cooling demands of modern hardware. This
problem can only get worse as the enterprise continues to adopt high density hardware: for example, a recent
ARI survey showed that one in five of new servers are blades. Blade servers, in particular, cause problems for
data center managers, as they are forced to contend with significant power consumption and intense heat
generation.
Although 36% are currently building and/or planning new data centers, the long lead times involved could mean
organizations run out of capacity before new data centers are ready. Our research found that it typically takes
two years to complete the build of a new data center. Of those data centers that have begun construction, 30%
will take between a year and two years to go live, and over 15% will take longer still.
In this research note, the ARI reviews the status of data center builds: their size and scope, power
specifications and the time it will take to put them into operation. The investigation highlights the escalating
problems caused by high density equipment, and how the time lag between planning and launching a new data
center may mean that the lifecycle of many data centers will be reduced as they quickly become functionally
obsolete.
The results are based on a detailed survey of more than 100 data center professionals across a range of
sectors including the healthcare, banking and insurance, retail, telecommunications, government and
pharmaceutical industries.
© 2008 Aperture, Inc. All rights reserved. Reproduction and distribution of this publication in any form without prior written permission is
forbidden. The information contained herein has been obtained from sources believed to be reliable. Aperture disclaims all warranties as to he
accuracy, completeness or adequacy of such information. Although this research may discuss legal issues related to the information
technology business, Aperture does not provide legal advice or services and its research should not be construed or used as such. Aperture
has no liability for errors, omissions, or inadequacies in the information contained herein or for interpretations thereof. The opinions expressed
herein are subject to change without notice.
DATA CENTERS LACK TOOLS TO MEASURE EFFICIENCY AND SUPPORT GREEN INITIATIVES
2
The Aging Data Center
Organizations across all industries rely on the data center as the foundation of the enterprise. In this research,
the ARI surveyed data center managers from a range of sectors, including the finance, healthcare, retail,
pharmaceutical, government and telecommunications industries. The survey showed that organizations
typically operate multiple data centers: over a third (38%) of the companies surveyed had more than six distinct
data centers and over a quarter (28%) utilized more than ten data centers.
How many data center does your company have?
100%
80%
60%
40%
20%
25%
29%
28%
10%
8%
0%
1 data center
2 centers
3-5 centers
6-10 centers
Over
ver 10
0 centers
Many organizations have high expectations of their data centers and the survey showed that the majority of
data centers are built to provide high availability. The Uptime Institute has created a tiered classification for data
centers, which associates the data center configuration and infrastructure with the level of availability it is able
1
to support . Using this system, Tier III was found to be the most common classification of data center in this
survey, which typifies companies that have identified a high cost associated with unplanned downtime. A
quarter of companies were operating at least one Tier IV data center, the highest level of availability. These
organizations understand the vital role that high availability infrastructure plays in winning business and building
market share and are typically companies in highly competitive and client-focused sectors with international
operations, such as finance or e-commerce.
Despite this focus on a robust infrastructure and high availability, data centers are aging. 37% of the
organizations surveyed admitted to the ARI that they built their most recent data center more than four years
ago. As our research found that it typically takes two years to complete the build of a new data center, this
means that some of the newest data centers in operation were designed up to six years ago. This figure is
cause for concern, because most of these data centers will not have been built to the specifications demanded
by modern hardware. This presents serious challenges in managing space, power and cooling in the data
center, in order to keep the data center functional and serving the business.
The good news is that organizations are starting to respond to this challenge, and 36% of the companies
surveyed are beginning to build and/or plan new data centers. There is a clear recognition of how new data
center operations can help the companies scale to meet future demands, as well as presenting a means for the
long-term reduction of energy consumption and overall costs.
1
Tier Classifications Define Site Infrastructure Performance; W. Pitt Turner IV, PE, John H Seader, PE, and
Kenneth G Brill; The Uptime Institute, 1996-2006
©2008 Aperture Technologies, Inc
DATA CENTERS LACK TOOLS TO MEASURE EFFICIENCY AND SUPPORT GREEN INITIATIVES
3
When did you build your most recent data center?
100%
80%
60%
40%
38%
16%
20%
18%
15%
13%
0%
Overr 4 years ago
3-4 years ago
1-2 years ago
6 months-1 year
ago
Within the last 6
months
There are promising signs of investment within the financial sector in particular, which was the largest vertical
represented within the 15% of respondents that had built their most recent data center in the past six months.
The research reveals, though, that many organizations will be unprepared for the challenges ahead. 64% of
those surveyed are neither planning nor building a data center, which means the data centers at their disposal
will be relics, unable to support the latest technology with adequate power and cooling.
Are you building or planning a new data center?
100%
80%
64%
60%
40%
20%
9%
10%
16%
0%
Building only
Planning only
Building and planning
Neither
ther building nor
planning
The Challenge: High Density Equipment
In recent years, blade servers have been increasingly deployed in the data center, a response to the need to
squeeze more capacity from existing rack and floor space. With a compact size and easy installation process,
blades are an attractive option, but they come at a price.
Although a single blade server may not use more power than a conventional server, a full rack of blade servers
consumes much more power than a rack of conventional servers, because more blades fit into a rack. As a
result, the demand for power and cooling is far greater when blade servers are widely deployed. Blade servers
started to develop a presence in data centers around 2003-2004 and have become prominent in the last couple
of years. Data centers over four years old are highly unlikely to have been built with enough power and cooling
capacity to support the full potential of blade servers. Where blades are being used in older data centers, there
is a significantly greater risk of outage, particularly if power and cooling are poorly managed.
©2008 Aperture Technologies, Inc
DATA CENTERS LACK TOOLS TO MEASURE EFFICIENCY AND SUPPORT GREEN INITIATIVES
4
The vast majority of data center managers have already deployed blade servers:
Do you have blade servers in your data centers?
87%
100%
80%
60%
40%
13%
20%
0%
Yess
Y
Ye
No
New blade servers continue to be deployed, albeit cautiously. Only 27% of data center managers are using
blades for more than a fifth of their new server requirements. The challenges in heating and cooling could be a
constraint on the deployment of blade servers, particularly where data centers are more than four years old.
What percentage of your new servers are blades?
100%
80%
60%
40%
27%
20%
35%
15%
13%
11-20%
11 20%
6-10%
6 10%
10%
0%
Over 20%
O
1
1-5%
5%
None
N
For more information on blade servers and high-density operations, read the previous ARI report Data Center
Professionals Turn to High-Density Computing as Major Boom Continues.
Data Centers Under Construction
A quarter of the organizations we surveyed are currently building a new data center and there follows a profile
of the size, power and tier classifications of these current builds.
©2008 Aperture Technologies, Inc
DATA CENTERS LACK TOOLS TO MEASURE EFFICIENCY AND SUPPORT GREEN INITIATIVES
5
Are you currently building a new data center?
100%
75%
80%
60%
40%
25%
20%
0%
Yess
Y
Ye
No
It is a cause for concern that 75% of organizations do not have a new data center under construction; even if
they are in the planning phase, these companies are a great deal longer than two years’ away from any
planned new build increasing the business’s IT capacity.
Of the 25% of companies that are building data centers, 42% are less than 20,000 square feet, 27% are
between 20,000 and 50,000 square feet and 31% are between 50,000 and 150,000 square feet plus.
What is the size of your current data center build?
100%
80%
60%
40%
20%
27%
27%
15%
15%
12%
4%
0%
0-10K Sq.ft
Sq ft
f
10-20K Sq
Sq.ft
f
ft
20-50K Sq.ft
Sq ft
f
50-100K Sq
Sq.ft
f
ft
100-150K
Sq.ft
Over 150K
Sq.ft
Organizations, particularly those that depend on high density equipment, must be able to plan their power and
cooling capacity three years into the future to have confidence they can instigate a new build project in time.
Powering The New Data Centers
As many as 23% of new data centers will consume between six and ten megawatts of power, and over half will
consume between one and five megawatts. Only when you consider the size of a megawatt, a million watts, or
the fact that six megawatts can power 5,000 average homes, does the enormity of this sink in. There’s a huge
cost involved in operating data centers that consume this much energy. As a rough guide, to power a onemegawatt facility could cost around a million dollars every year. Potentially, respondents that are building ten
megawatt facilities could face an annual energy bill of ten million dollars.
Since power is often the overriding constraint on the data center and is a significant cost driver, it is worrying
that 4% of data center managers did not know the power consumption of the facility they were building.
©2008 Aperture Technologies, Inc
DATA CENTERS LACK TOOLS TO MEASURE EFFICIENCY AND SUPPORT GREEN INITIATIVES
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What will be the total power consumption of your current data center build?
100%
80%
57%
60%
40%
20%
23%
4%
12%
4%
0%
Under 1
megawatt
1-5 megawatts
6-10 megawatts
Over 10
megawatts
Don't Know
Initiatives from the likes of The Green Grid, the consortium focused on advancing energy efficiency in data
centers and business computing ecosystems, are offering companies better tools to help them measure power
consumption when rolling out servers in new data centers. For example, as companies address the challenges
and cost-saving benefits that can be achieved from new builds, the consortium is helping data center managers
to assess whether it is performance per watt or power per rack that should take precedence when it comes to
building new data centers.
Tier Classification
It was surprising, considering the amount of planning required for a new data center build, that more than a
tenth (12%) of data center managers did not know what Tier classification they were building their new center
to.
Equally unexpected was the number of builds that were Tier I or Tier II. Although each industry, and each
business, has unique needs with regards to uptime and availability, Tier I suggests a low availability
requirement that is rare in any business nowadays. It is difficult to upgrade a data center by more than one tier
level, so it is inadvisable for companies to build low availability infrastructure in the hope they can upgrade later.
It is far more responsible to calculate the availability required for current and future business requirements and
to design, build and operate the data center to conform to those needs.
What is the 'tier classification' of the data center you are building?
100%
80%
60%
42%
40%
20%
19%
15%
12%
12%
Tier IV
Don't Know
0%
Tier I
Tier II
Tier III
Of those that did know their Tier Level, Tier III was the most common classification, which reflects the need for
higher availability.
©2008 Aperture Technologies, Inc
DATA CENTERS LACK TOOLS TO MEASURE EFFICIENCY AND SUPPORT GREEN INITIATIVES
7
Although work has already begun on these data centers, 31% will take between a year and two years to
launch, 12% will take between two and three years and 4% will take over 3 years. These figures illustrate that
even once planning has been completed, there is a significant time lag before the data center is ready to serve
the business.
When will your current build be in production?
100%
80%
60%
40%
23%
20%
11%
19%
31%
12%
4%
0%
Next
x 3 Months
3-6 Months
6-12 Months
12-24 Months
24-36 Months
Over 36
Months
Planning New Data Centers
A new data center is a substantial investment in time and money, but with the pressure on existing data centers
intensifying, new builds are proving essential for organizations that need a scalable IT infrastructure they can
rely on.
Just over a quarter (26%) of respondents we surveyed are currently planning a new data center and there
follows a profile of the size and power classifications of these planned builds.
Of those planning new data centers, almost a third (30%) indicated they were planning to build data centers
occupying between 10,000 and 20,000 square feet; a size profile very similar to that of current data center
builds. Many inner city companies, particularly visual effects companies and financial institutions, have found
themselves ‘trapped’ by their geographical circumstances. Although it means paying hefty rents on some of the
most expensive real estate property in the world, such companies have little choice but to put their trade at the
heart of their respective media and financial epicenters. As a result, the data center managers in such
companies are under constant pressure to do more in less space. High density equipment is more likely to be
deployed for that reason, which increases the power and cooling required.
©2008 Aperture Technologies, Inc
DATA CENTERS LACK TOOLS TO MEASURE EFFICIENCY AND SUPPORT GREEN INITIATIVES
8
What size is the data center that you are planning to build?
100%
80%
60%
30%
40%
20%
26%
15%
15%
7%
7%
100-150K
Sq.ft
Over 150K
Sq.ft
0%
0-10K Sq.ft
Sq ft
f
10-20K Sq.ft
Sq ft
f
20-50K Sq.ft
Sq ft
f
50-100K Sq.ft
Sq ft
f
Soaring energy costs, power supply shortages and environmental concerns about energy use have made
power and efficiency top priorities in the data center. In recognition of this, all of the managers knew the power
consumption of the data centers they were now planning. This compares favorably with the data center
managers who are currently building data centers, where 4% did not know the power consumption of the
facilities in production. The following results indicate that the forecasted power consumption of both current
build and planned build are roughly the same.
What will be the total power consumption of your planned data center build?
100%
80%
55%
60%
40%
20%
22%
19%
4%
0%
0%
Under 1
megawatt
1-5 megawatts
6-10 megawatts
Over 10
megawatts
Don't Know
Facilities in the planning stage will take an average of one to two years to go live, with 26% taking between two
and three years and a further 15% taking over three years. There have been advances in data center planning
tools and an increase in the number of design and engineering firms specializing in data center builds.
Combining this with careful selection of green-field sites, land that is undeveloped or agricultural, it is possible
that the average data center build time will reduce. Despite this, we suspect that there will be some who find
they run out of capacity before their new build is ready because they are surprised by the long lead-times
involved. The limited supply of power or the need for new sub stations will always be a constraint on how
quickly new data centers can be built.
The lead time in data center production is one to three years, with one to two years the most common
timeframe to reach production. This means that these planned data centers are likely to be years away from
deployment, and the 64% who are not yet building or planning will be even further away than that.
©2008 Aperture Technologies, Inc
DATA CENTERS LACK TOOLS TO MEASURE EFFICIENCY AND SUPPORT GREEN INITIATIVES
When will your planned build be in production?
100%
80%
60%
41%
40%
26%
20%
0%
0%
Next 3 Months
7%
3-6 Months
©2008 Aperture Technologies, Inc
11%
6-12 Months
12-24 Months
24-36 Months
15%
Over 36
Months
9
DATA CENTERS LACK TOOLS TO MEASURE EFFICIENCY AND SUPPORT GREEN INITIATIVES
10
Survey Methodology
More than 100 data center professionals and executives from a variety of industries participated in this online
survey. Survey participants were solicited from an industry database of Aperture customers and prospects. The
charts below illustrate the demographics of companies that took part in the survey.
Annual Revenue of Participating Companies
6%
5%
8%
8
%
Less than $100M
$100M - $250M
$250M - $500M
$500M - $1B
20%
2
0%
61%
Over $1B
The chart below shows the cross section of types of businesses that participated in the survey. It includes
companies across various vertical industries and ranges from smaller businesses to Fortune 100 companies.
Primary Industry of Participating Organizations
15%
Banks
Computer Software
29%
%
Insurance
Diversified Financials
12%
12
Education
Health Care
Pharmaceuticals
7%
7%
%
8%
Goverment
Retail
5
%
5%
5%
3%
4%
4
%
3%
.
©2008 Aperture Technologies, Inc
9
%
9%
Telecom
Other
DATA CENTERS LACK TOOLS TO MEASURE EFFICIENCY AND SUPPORT GREEN INITIATIVES
11
Conclusions
Data center professionals and the data they manage continue to increase in importance. Over a third of
companies surveyed now rely on more than six separate data centers, while more than a quarter operate over
10 data centers.
As organizations increasingly deploy high density devices to meet their capacity demands within limited
physical space, the age of the data center will become a problem. 38% of organizations are depending on data
centers that are at least four years old, and as it typically takes two years to complete the build of a new data
center, this means that these data centers were designed up to six years ago, in a pre-high-density era. As
their physical infrastructure is designed to legacy specifications, at best they will struggle to support blade
servers to their full potential. At worst, the lifecycle of these data centers will be reduced as they become
functionally obsolete.
The good news is that organizations are starting to respond to this challenge, and 36% of the companies
surveyed are beginning to plan and build new data centers. Conversely, it is a cause for concern that 64% of
those surveyed do not have a new data center under construction: even if they were in the planning phase,
these organizations would be a great deal longer than two years away from operating any planned new build.
For that reason, it is essential that organizations can forecast their capacity requirements three years into the
future.
For those who do not wish to deploy a new build, it is essential that they closely monitor their data centers’
power and cooling, with particular attention paid to high density devices.
The Aperture Research Institute is dedicated to providing the market with current information and trends on
enterprise data centers. The institute plans to publish new research notes on a quarterly basis. To read the
latest research findings, visit http://www.aperture.com.
©2008 Aperture Technologies, Inc
www.aperture.com
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