When the IT blog Data Center Knowledge released
their 2011 Data Center
Market Insight Report, Chatsworth Products, Inc. (CPI)
immediately set out to discover the meaning and resolutions behind
its most important findings. Among them, the top issues and
concerns facing data center operators today.
So far, we've covered issues six through three, which you can
read at each link, here:
Today, we wrap up our coverage with a look at the top two issues
as determined by the Data Center Knowledge findings:
capacity planning and
scalability.
Interestingly enough, both these issues involve looking towards
the future with both optimism and pragmatism. On one hand, it's
almost assured that your organization will need more capacity in
the future. Every day, new data is created, uploaded and logged. It
needs a home, and depending upon your archival process, a long-term
home at that. At the same time, how you choose to handle this
influx of new data will help determine just how much scalability to
implement.
Traditionally, data center operators might have only opted to
half-populate a rack or cabinet to curb exhaust heat from servers
and switches, fearing the high density output from a fully
populated solution. However, with today's ability to isolate and re-route this
heat through a vertical exhaust duct and other thermal management
accessories, IT cabinets can now be filled to capacity without
concern, and thus, more equipment installed throughout the data
center.
Another important factor to consider in terms of capacity and
scalability is that of power. As new equipment populates the data
center, the need for reliable power management
increases.
CPI's Scalable Enterprise Management Application (SEMA)
software provides real-time, any-where access to your data
center's entire power structure, and thus helps you plan for
redundancy and react quickly to outages.
Ultimately, no data center is greater than the sum of its parts.
If you start out strong with good design choices and plans that
look ahead to future growth and scalability, you're already ahead
of the game. However, if you feel like you've fallen behind the
times, don't despair. There are plenty of cost effective ways to
implement new strategies with regards to power, cooling and space.
So how do you balance between the latest and greatest and sometimes
sticking with what works already? Survey says… Chatsworth Products,
Inc.! Jeff Cihocki, eContent
Specialist