Does demand mean the only answer is more building or should better use be made of data centers that enterprises have already built and paid for?
Every business decision driven by financial, sustainability, environmental, social, and corporate governance factors points to the significant corporate re-evaluation of all existing property holdings for commercial office space and data centers.
Environmental, Sustainability and Governance (ESG) is focused on how companies use existing infrastructure assets. Along with many other factors, from climate change to COVID, enterprises are forced to re-evaluate their data centers.
Fundamental questions are being asked, including:
- How much could unused value be locked up in existing data center property portfolios?
- How much value could be realized by acknowledging and addressing infrastructure debt in the form of stranded and wasted capacity?
- How transformational could it be operationally to use data to optimize processes?
- How much new value could be realized from existing data center portfolios?
Companies can no longer ignore the accrued infrastructure debt locked into existing digital-physical data center assets.
Serverfarm believes finding new value in the enterprise data center is not just a possibility but it’s a priority.
The path to finding new financial value starts with asking the right questions such as:
- How are my data centers being used?
- What is the average occupancy level?
- Which facilities are being underused?
- How much data center power and space is going to waste?
- How much is it costing?
The average enterprise data center costs between $10 and $12 million per MW, with additional expenses typically front-loaded with the first, deployed megawatts.
Time Waits For No One
Then over time, as with all things physical, infrastructure becomes less efficient. This affects equipment such as UPS, Switches, Chillers, and CRAC units, causing maintenance and service expenses to grow.
Traditional management approaches risk exacerbating infrastructure inefficiencies. Data center managers are often constrained by traditional methods and existing policies. Inflexible processes mean modern working practices and methodologies are challenging to adopt. Further expense is incurred through missed opportunity cost as fixed operational processes become overtaken by new technology solutions which improve efficiencies while increasing utilization.
Poor Data Means Poor Decisions
Often decision-makers don’t know or understand the data coming from within the data center. Serverfarm InCommand is a DMaaS (data center management as a service) software platform that provides real-time analytical and technical insights for fully optimized data center operations.
InCommand real-time data capture of all M+E operations enables better working practices to improve process and control over the entire data center mechanical and electrical systems across multiple sites, wherever they are located across the globe.
InCommand features the ability to capture data on how IT workloads draw power right down at rack level. Benefits of InCommand as a cloud and from a cloud DMaaS analytical platform include real-time technical insights in order to develop better working practices; Improve process and control; Capture Internet of Things (IoT) data; Monitor continuously…. the list goes on.
It enables demand-based usage and reduced redundancies, contributing to ascertaining the most appropriate and efficient operational decision possible.
Waste in the Data Center is no Longer Acceptable
It has a double negative impact of continuously rising unnecessary costs and losing the additional value locked up in the asset. It is time to end the practice of enterprises carrying the weight of DCIDD (Data Center Infrastructure Design Debt).
This is an edited extract from Ending Data Center Infrastructure Design Debt – A Business White Paper on Transforming Enterprise Data Center Strategies. Covering – Finance; Operations; Sustainability; Alternative Futures
Read the Serverfarm White Paper: Ending Data Center Infrastructure Design Debt
A business white paper on transforming enterprise data center strategies covering finance, operations, and sustainability.