EDITOR’S QUESTION
at times incredibly secretive. One could
argue that legislation needs to be in place
to ensure future data centre facilities are
designed and built to a specific standard,
however the fields of technology and
legislation have rarely moved at the same
pace. In some instances, this could be a
potential hindrance to the innovation and
development of ideas that can move the
industry forward.
The Green Grid, the Open Compute
Project and the EU Code of Conduct have
provided metrics and guidelines around
energy consumption and efficiency, but
organisations such as these are largely
voluntary. While there is a tremendous
amount of focus on the large hyperscale
cloud and colocation providers, there is
very little focus on enterprise facilities.
A report by Lawrence Berkeley
National Laboratory in 2016 on US
data centres concluded that despite
electricity consumption rising for more
than a decade and an increase in the
deployment of large hyperscale facilities,
consumption had started to plateau,
largely due to the significant increases in
the operating efficiencies of these new
and larger facilities, making them less
energy intensive.
GERARD THIBAULT,
CTO, KAO DATA
he demand for data
centre services is
growing rapidly; the rise
in digital technologies
and their associated
uses has escalated year
on year and shows no signs of slowing.
With just under half the global population
still to come online, the role that data
centres play in our everyday lives will only
increase in significance.
T
Some industry analysts have forecast
that data centres will consume as much
as 20% of global electricity by 2025.
With such large numbers forecast,
collaboration in our industry, including the
extended supply-chain, will need to be an
absolute requirement if we are to ensure
sustainability, reduce carbon emissions
and create more efficient processes.
However, for a collaborative approach to
www.intelligentdatacentres.com
succeed in any industry, a large amount
of openness and transparency is required.
This can be immensely challenging when
the industry is fiercely competitive and
SOME INDUSTRY
ANALYSTS HAVE
FORECAST THAT
DATA CENTRES
WILL CONSUME
AS MUCH AS
20% OF GLOBAL
ELECTRICITY
BY 2025.
The data centre industry is the subject
of scrutiny and constant review by
industry analysts and consultants. It is
relatively easy in this day and age to
find the total technical floor space of a
colocation provider, or the amount of
MW powering a new hyperscale facility.
However, the majority of inefficient legacy
infrastructure sits within the enterprise
sector, which is largely unpublished.
As companies migrate their services to
hyperscale and colocation providers,
inefficient legacy infrastructure will
gradually reduce. However, this is not
a quick process – migrating existing
workloads comes with a completely new
set of challenges that involve a variety of
different stakeholders within a business.
In order to maximise the sustainability
and efficiency of the sector, I believe that
greater collaboration will be required from
customers and vendors alike, to ensure
new infrastructure design and delivery
meets the real market requirements.
Issue 12
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