subject: Datacentre Trends.. Our Survey Said [print this page] Datacentre Trends.Datacentre Trends.. Our Survey Said
In the simplest terms; if the datacentre doesn't work then neither does the IT function itself. But today's datacentre also has a thankless task. Like the swan gliding across the lake, the smooth aesthetics of IT's top half, above the waterline i.e. the applications always seems to get more attention than the rather functional engine room' below it.
In some ways this is perhaps understandable. The datacentre may be the means but, as the tools the users employ to keep the business itself functioning, the applications are the end.
The first may be justified by the second of course, but providers have long been warning of the dangers of taking the datacentre for granted and if recent research from critical business continuity player Emerson Network Power is anything to go by, the issue may now be coming to a head.
Focusing on technologies and best practices for optimised datacentre infrastructure operation, management, and uptime, the company's bi-annual Datacentre Users Group (DCUG) survey polled more than 170 datacentre, facility and IT managers. In doing so it revealed several areas of growing concern among those tasked with stoking the furnaces in IT's engine rooms, especially in areas such as monitoring, availability, and heat management.
Power was found to be one of the key points of concern for instance, with hot spots', running out', and major outages' (often costing as much as $2 million) cited among the biggest headline issues. Cooling too. While heat density', availability' (ranking second and third respectively) energy efficiency' and power density' were also cited.
However, having climbed steadily up the list of IT leaders' concerns in Emerson's previous two DCUG surveys, adequate monitoring and management' emerged as the respondents' number one facility and networking worry. IT management, in other words, is getting increasingly anxious that its monitoring and management capabilities are inadequate.
The effectiveness and efficiency of infrastructure monitoring and management is now quite clearly a top-of-mind issue for datacentre managers then; with many realising its overriding importance in maintaining availability, driving efficiency, planning for the future and managing change. The real point though, is that this in turn makes the datacentre itself, for perhaps the first time, a top-of-mind issue for the business itself.
To clarify, Emerson's survey simply confirms what most IT managers have known for years. The datacentre no longer lies simply at the heart of the modern IT department, but at the heart of the modern business.
If the datacentre doesn't work, neither does the organisation.
