DATA CENTRE PREDICTIONS
Uptime Institute ’ s annual Global Data Center Survey , provides a comprehensive profile of the current digital critical infrastructure landscape and a sense of its future trajectory . Key findings from the 2021 report include :
• Organisations are not closely tracking their environmental footprint despite the global sustainability push . While most data centre owners and operators track PUE and more than 80 % measure power consumption rates and effectiveness , many still are not prioritising vital metrics for improving and reporting sustainability . Just 51 % of respondents measure water use in some way ( mainly at the individual site level instead of across their entire portfolio of facilities ). Less than half of respondents say that they track server utilisation , only one-third calculate carbon emission levels and just 25 % track e-waste or equipment life cycle metrics .
• Staffing shortages continue and AI is not expected to reduce requirements in the near future . As the sector continues to grow , the shortage of qualified data centre professionals continues . Nearly half of owners and operators surveyed report difficulty finding skilled candidates , up from 38 % in 2018 . As such , it is clear why 75 % of respondents believe that most data centre professionals have long-term job security . Three out of four owners and operators believe Artificial Intelligence ( AI ) will reduce their data centre staffing needs at some point , but half project this shift is more than five years away .
• The number of outages has declined , but the consequences continue to worsen . In 2021 , 69 % of data centre owners and operators reported experiencing some form of outage ( regardless of severity ) in the past three years , a noteworthy decrease from 78 % for the three years to 2020 . While respondents indicate that just over half of all downtime incidents are fleeting and have few consequences , the remaining half cause substantial financial , operational and reputational damage . And 62 % of outages that respondents classified as significant , serious or severe cost more than US $ 100,000 ( an increase from 56 % in 2020 ), while 15 % of these outages cost over US $ 1 million .
• On-site power remains the most common cause of outages , and most downtime incidents are likely preventable . As with previous years , on-site power was the most common cause of outages in 2021 , followed by cooling failures , software or IT system errors and network issues .
The results show that 79 % of data centre outages involve human error and that staff failing to execute or incorrect processes and procedures are the top two issues contributing to those incidents . Three out of four owners and operators believe their most recent outage was preventable , a 16 % increase over 2019 .
THE STAKES HAVE NEVER BEEN HIGHER WHEN IT COMES TO OUTAGE PREVENTION , ENVIRONMENTAL SUSTAINABILITY AND OVERALL PERFORMANCE .
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