Information Week: 2010 Data Center Trends Report

Corporate America has made some painful adjustments over the past year, but for data center managers, the pressure to contain costs has always been unrelenting–it’s impossible to maintain a low profile when your area of responsibility consumes the bulk of the IT budget. This year in particular, though, we’re really feeling the heat, and not just from overloaded racks. Just 30% of the 370 respondents to our latest InformationWeek Analytics data center survey say they’ll see larger budgets for 2010 compared with 2009, yet half expect resource demands to increase.

The good news is that judicious use of a few key emerging technologies can yield big returns, as will a renewed focus on efficiency. Data center efficiency isn’t just about going green. Despite budgetary and business pressures, the servers keep rolling in the door and the power needs keep growing. So we need to step back and consider options outside our comfort zones–for example, running your data center a few degrees hotter can pay big dividends if you have the gumption to try it. Other advances are also helping CIOs extend the lives of their data centers through more efficient operations; we’ll profile six here.

more of the Information Week article from Kenneth Miller

Alex Carroll

Managing Member at Lifeline Data Centers

Alex, co-owner, is responsible for all real estate, construction and mission critical facilities: hardened buildings, power systems, cooling systems, fire suppression, and environmentals. Alex also manages relationships with the telecommunications providers and has an extensive background in IT infrastructure support, database administration and software design and development. Alex architected Lifeline’s proprietary GRCA system and is hands-on every day in the data center.