We have looked at some of our
VAR commentators’ most recent flagship data centre projects, but what are the current hot talking points within the world of power and cooling in general?...
C
omtec’s Nick Ewing believes virtualisation has played a huge part in helping customers across the board to achieve greater utilisation and
therefore productivity in their data centres. “It is perhaps the one application that every data centre professional has, or will have to provision in the coming years,” he said. However, in virtualised environments Ewing points out that the criticality of individual physical servers is raised, increasing in turn the need for reliable and precise power and cooling provision. “As load conditions change rapidly the dynamic power variations found in virtualised data centres creates a real challenge for traditional or legacy approaches to cooling infrastructure,” commented Ewing. “With far greater power density being experienced, the idea of using perimeter computer room air conditioners (CRACs) with under floor cool air distribution has been proven unreliable.”
Rapid growth
Ewing added that desktop virtualisation is also likely to experience rapid growth as enterprises seek to bring data centre style energy savings to the desktop. “We believe that Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (VDI) will become a major trend,” he said. “In addition to the energy savings it will bring, we believe that the additional savings in software and operating system management costs, hardware lifetime and data security improvements will make a compelling business case from an ROI point of view. And of course it will also increase the demand for reliable data centre infrastructure.”
PCS Business Systems’ Sean Prince, pointed out that, as a general reseller, his business is about sourcing and supplying just about everything IT relate, and a lot of his day-to-day business is reactive to customers’ needs. He explained that, although he does supply a fair volume of UPS equipment, it is not to a level that has
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pointed to any pronounced, noticeable changes, development or trends in this technology space. However, Prince added: “As technology is changing and the end users require larger capacities to cover their data, resellers are becoming a lot more dependent on the vendor to lead the discussions with the end user, and we rely more heavily on their expertise.”
Next big thing
Sudlows’ Andy Hirst observes that there are so many different technologies available today. “The market changes so quickly that what was dismissed a year previous is now perceived as the next big thing,” he said. “The technology sector is fast-paced and can be very changeable so we keep our fingers on the pulse. I find that end-users can be easily grouped; trendsetters willing to chance new technologies, market researchers who rely entirely on in-depth technology statistics and recommendations, and those purely driven by energy efficiency in the quest to be the greenest possible organisation. We must be adaptable for all.”
With this dissection in mind, Hirst adds that he can probably see a number of cutting-edge areas picking up great momentum and demand over the next 12 to 18 months across all data centre disciplines. “We have had questions geared around evaporative cooling,
flywheel and lately toward hydrogen cells,” he remarked. “But probably the most crucial aspect is environmental monitoring, which measures and reports on such aspects as temperature and humidity conditions at cabinet level – as without intelligent environmental monitoring equipment we cannot evaluate and compare true system capabilities.” At the end of the day, says Hirst, no matter what comes along there is always going to be room to move forward in bettering and boosting efficiency levels due to the Government’s prevailing carbon commitments.
Convergence
In terms of tomorrow’s technology, Hirst reflects that although many people have been talking about converging technologies for years, he believes we are now at that crucial stage where all the separate elements that come together to create a data centre will be accurately controlled, operated and measured by a unifying intelligent infrastructure. “What I mean is that the infrastructures are no longer passive,” he said. “From the developments we are seeing in intelligent PDUs and environmental monitoring we can fine-tune data centres to be more flexible and reduce their power consumption in real-time and in line with forecast trends. In reality, data centres will be communicating to the business and able to operate at a near 100 per cent efficiency.”
IT RESELLER – MARCH 2011 11
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