More than ever before, the high cost of power is changing dramatically companies’ plans for building data centers. Just a few years ago it seemed to make sense for companies to build oversized data centers to accommodate future growth of the IT infrastructure. But it turns out the cost of supporting unused portions has quickly outdistanced any long-range efficiencies gained by having surplus space.
“We see our customers making very different design decisions than they used to,” Steve Sams, IBM’s VP of global site and facilities services, recently told Network World. “The end result is that they’re saving 30 percent in operational costs over the lifetime of the data center.”
Today’s emphasis is on maximizing efficiency, period. In fact, Sams says a recent IBM study revealed that costs to run a data center quickly surpass outlays for designing and building the facility. If energy costs rise only a conservative 10 percent, he says, the average data center will cost five times more to run over 20 years than it cost to originally build it.
“The most energy efficient data centers in the world are the ones operating at 100 percent capacity,” he says. And in this case, efficiency equates to cost-effectiveness.