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RETRO EDITION 2015

RETRO

‘Where we’re going, we don’t need roads’

INSIDE: A brief history of Date Centre Management London calling City Lifeline opens new data hall Back to the future The changing face of the Data Centre 2016 predictions Another year of growth?

DATAcentre

MANAGEMENT EDITOR JOHN HATCHER j.hatcher@turretgroup.com 01923 437618 ADVERTISING JOANNE KNOWLES 0207 348 4902 j.knowles@closerstillmedia.com CIRCULATION ELAINE PRENTICE 0844 334 6661 circulation @motivationmarketing.co.uk PRODUCTION CAROL BAIRD 01923 437619 c.baird@turretgroup.com HEAD OF PORTFOLIO THOMAS STANDLEY thomas.standley@ closerstillmedia.com EXHIBITION SALES RABINDER AULAKH 0207 348 5770 rabinder.aulakh@ closerstillmedia.com

WELCOME

his issue sees us looking back over the nine years and over 50 issues of DCM and in some ways everything has changed and nothing has changed. There is still pressure on the data centre, though now it comes from the cloud. Virtualization is now an industry standard and PUEs have dropped considerably in the most modern of data centres. In the news research shows that all the many deals that are

CONTENTS

RETRO

Closer to the edge

DCM looks at all the news from across the industry, with news from home and abroad

Schneider takes a look at the past and future of data centres and says that micro data centres are coming

A brief history...

A tailor made service

A look back over the last few years of the data centre industry and what the future may hold INSIDE: A brief history of Date Centre Management London calling City Lifeline opens new data hall Back to the future The changing face of the Data Centre 2016 predictions Another year of growth?

Munters turns 60! Munters says that its passion for innovation is still paramount, event after 60 years in business

John Hatcher Editor

News

RETRO EDITION 2015

‘Where we’re going, we don’t need roads’

being completed in the data centre industry are encouraging growth, and that consolidation is coming thick and fast. Clearly the mantra at the moment is ‘bigger is better’, but that still has to be proven. Smaller companies like City Lifeline, that we feature in this issue, still have a role to play in the market and more power to them. It will be interesting to see how the market develops in the next nine years!

Splice Group is celebrating its 25th year in business

Fire protection

Siemens and 3M look at the latest innovations in fire protection and what we can expect in the future

Produced by Turret Group on behalf of

Q&A Colin Hyde, ARC:MC Suite 17, Exhibition House, Addison Bridge Place London, W14 8XP Tel: +44 (0) 20 7348 5250

ISSN: 1753-9897 Printed by: Stephens & George © Copyright CloserStill Ltd 2015. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be produced in any material form (including photocopying it or storing it in any medium by electronic means and whether or not transiently or incidentally to some other use of this publication) without the written permission of the copyright owner except in accordance with the provisions of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 or under terms of a licence issued by the Copyright Licensing Agency Ltd. Applications for the copyright owner's written permission to reproduce any part of this publication should be addressed to info@turretgroup.com

www.datacentremanagement.com now has RSS feeds DATAcentreMANAGEMENT WINTER 2015 3

NEWS

NEWS IN BRIEF ■ SOFT TOUCH Microsoft CEO, Satya Nadella, has announced plans to offer commercial cloud services from the UK. Microsoft Azure and Office 365 will be generally available from local UK-based data centres in late 2016 with Microsoft Dynamics CRM Online following shortly thereafter. Built on foundational trusted cloud principles of security, privacy and control, compliance and transparency, these services will offer customers data residency in the UK, bringing world-class reliability and performance to government organisations, regulated industries and other businesses. Microsoft also announced completion of the latest phase of expansion for its data centre facilities in Ireland and the Netherlands, both of which serve as cloud computing hubs for European customers. These new cloud offerings and expanded facilities will provide customers with more choice and increased opportunities to innovate more quickly, enabling growth for local economies. “At Microsoft, our mission is to empower every person and organisation on the planet to achieve more,” said Satya Nadella, chief executive officer of Microsoft. “By expanding our data centre regions in the UK, Netherlands and Ireland we aim to give local businesses and organisations of all sizes the transformative technology they need to seize new global growth.”

Giant deals encourage growth Micro ew data from Synergy Research Group shows worldwide spend on cloud infrastructure services continues to grow at around 50% per year, requiring the leading cloud providers to invest many billions of dollars in expanding their global network of hyperscale data centres. The top four cloud providers alone have some 110 data centres located in 20 different countries, most of which are huge facilities. Synergy expects their data centre count to grow by 20% in the next twelve months, which will be in addition to

expanding the capacity of existing facilities. Synergy has also identified well over $25 billion in recent data centreoriented M&A deals, with data centre specialists like Equinix, Digital Realty, NTT and IBM leading the charge. “This is a time of unprecedented change in the IT industry. End users are getting access to flexible and agile IT services that they could only dream about a few years ago and CIOs are pulling back from buying and managing their own data centres. Why do something that is so difficult and so

distracting when there are now much better options out there?” said John Dinsdale, a chief analyst and research director at Synergy Research Group. “It’s all change. Companies like AWS and Microsoft are now major players in enterprise IT; IBM is totally reinventing itself; companies like Equinix and NTT are amassing huge data centre footprints; while HP and Cisco are aggressively growing their cloud technology business units. We do not expect the rate of change to lessen over the coming years.”

Recent big data centre deals Buyer

Target

Date

Price (USD bn)

Equinix

TelecityGroup

Pending

$3.4

TierPoint

Windstream

Pending

$0.6

Digital Realty

Telx

2015

$1.9

NTT

e-shelter

2015

$0.8

Zayo

Layisys

2015

$0.7

Telstra

Pacnet

2015

$0.7

Interoute

Easynet

2015

$0.6

Shaw

Viawest

2014

$1.2

NTT

Rading Wire

2014

$0.4

IBM

Softlayer

2013

$2.0

Cogeco

Peer 1

2013

$0.5

New campus opens in Stockholm

power Schneider Electric has announced the introduction of its micro data centre solution portfolio for the UK and Ireland. The range enables data processing to be brought nearer to the point of M2M data production in IOT and other highly automated applications. Delivered in a single enclosure, the benefits of the new micro data centre solutions include power, cooling and management software to support a self contained, secure computing environment. The factory-built solutions are ideal for customers who need to reduce latency and quickly add capacity while ensuring a secure and easy to manage environment. The solutions offer the option to be supplied as chassis prepared for population, or as ready-todeploy appliances including IT equipment via systems integration partners. "Through the micro data centre offer, Schneider Electric is addressing the latency, bandwidth and processing speed challenges customers are facing," said Kevin Brown, vice president, global data centre strategy and technology Schneider Electric.

igiPlex has agreed connectivity deals with a dozen leading telecoms operators for its major new campus site in Stockholm, Sweden. The agreements mean that the new data centre in Upplands Väsby, in Stockholm County, will be one of the best-connected sites in Sweden when it opens in January 2016. With almost 20,000m2 of data centre space planned, it will make DigiPlex one of Sweden's largest data centre operators. It will also be one of the world's most energy-efficient and green data centres, targeting a PUE of less than 1.2, and deriving all its power from renewable energy sources. Swedish and international telecoms operators that have already signed agreements include Colt, CenturyLink, Verizon, IP-Only, IPC and EU Networks. Also present at the site will be Stokab and Skanova, the incumbent dark fibre providers. Gisle M. Eckhoff, CEO of DigiPlex, says: “The fact that so many operators have already chosen to connect to our Stockholm data centre reflects the strong anticipated demand from our customers.”

4 DATAcentreMANAGEMENT WINTER 2015

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NEWS

NEWS IN BRIEF ■ GLOBAL ALLIANCE Atos and ICTroom have signed a global alliance agreement that establishes a partnership to deliver end-to-end data centre services to their clients. The agreement enables enterprises to create and operate a future-state technology eco-system that will support business growth, agility and sustainability. Atos has vast experience in data centre consolidation, moves, virtualisation, optimisation and transformation projects, in more than 1,000 data centre projects over the last 10 years. ICTroom has delivered over 250 data centres and computer rooms across Benelux, Europe and other parts of the world. In the beginning the scope of the alliance agreement includes Benelux, Sweden, Finland, Denmark and Central and Eastern Europe. More regions and countries will follow at a later stage.

Power shortages? Data centre owners need to thoroughly test their backup power solutions to ensure that they will be unaffected by possible power shortages this winter, says Data Centre Alliance (DCA) board member Anne Stokes. The reliability on the National Grid being “always on and always there” has meant that many operators and users have not robustly checked their plan B scenarios and whether they could cope with sustained power interruption, resulting in an increased risk of power downtime. The National Grid is set to publish an updated report within the next few days, which is expected to reveal that the spare electricity capacity this winter could fall to just 1.2 per cent if temperatures drop, which is potentially the biggest threat to Britain’s power supplies for a decade. The National Grid’s coverage is historically very consistent, meaning that backup power generators in data centres have not been needed and test regimes may not have been as robustly applied. Anne Stokes, board member for the DCA and CEO of Streamwire stated: “British businesses have become rather spoilt by the reliability and stability of the National Grid’s services nationwide. The projections as to UK power capacity should we have a severe cold spell means that we have absolutely no guarantees of this going forward. Everyone must ensure that they have a plan B that they have robustly tested before it is too late. “As is often the case, assumptions drive decisions as to risk - and the risk of the National Grid failing to be there when we need it, is factored within all tier two and above facilities in the UK. These facilities must have some form of back up power to ensure they can continue to support the companies that house their own business systems within these facilities. However, ensuring these power supplies actually work when you really need them to requires systematic and sustained field-testing under the equivalent of a live load scenario…. In other words, the data centre test drive” Stokes concluded: “The process of checking “the lights will stay on” is simple but vital.”

Wheel of fortune iemon has launched ‘WheelHouse’; a complete portfolio of advanced data centre solutions. Aligning the company’s established line of cable and connectivity systems, cabinets, cable management and power distribution with an array of new product innovations, WheelHouse delivers a comprehensive range of advanced data centre solutions to support any size and type of data centre, from large, high-

6 DATAcentreMANAGEMENT WINTER 2015

performance computing environments and colocations, to small-to-mid size enterprise data centres. “WheelHouse takes advantage of innovative, valueadd data centre infrastructure solutions designed to speed deployment, improve scalability, enhance manageability and increase efficiency,” explains Alberto Zucchinali, EMEA data centre solutions and services manager at Siemon.

FOODfor THOUGHT Franek Sodzawiczny CEO, Zenium Technology Partners

As 2015 comes to a close, the business and analyst communities start buzzing about which potential hot topics will feature on the boardroom agenda next year. Analyst group Gartner suggests that Cloud Computing is growing and will account for the majority of new IT spend. I would be inclined to agree, as ever growing data volumes continue to fuel the migration of corporate data to the cloud. However, the Cloud will only continue to be a viable solution if those using it remain confident that it is secure, and data centres – though often overlooked here - are considered as a fundamental component of the overall offering. The data centre sector doesn’t just add value to the data management cycle however. ‘Green’ issues, despite featuring on the business agenda for some time now, will continue to get mind share in 2016 as companies work towards achieving energy efficiency targets. Research conducted earlier this year by Zenium entitled “‘Managing Growth, Risk and the Cloud”, showed that 33% of the senior IT executive surveyed said that they were determined to use data centre outsourcing as a means to tackle this, and now consider green credentials to be one of their top three most important criteria when choosing a data centre operator partner. So, if organisations are turning to third party data centre specialists to tackle wider business issues can this also lead to positive results in other areas? Maybe, as surprisingly 86% of those surveyed also stated that data centre outsourcing is indeed the most effective way to manage core IT infrastructure, leaving the IT team free to focus on delivering value and innovation back to the business. The level of investment and expertise required to deliver, and maintain, today’s data centre infrastructure is substantial and the ongoing pressures on IT professionals to respond to new legislation, challenging targets and the evolving needs of the business is immense. If working with a third party data centre specialist can help companies meet these challenges, and enable them to innovate, then they should start to see their data centre partner as a strategic long term part of their business plan.

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NEWS

NEWS IN BRIEF ■ UNDER THE SEA Equinix says the new Hibernia Express Cable system which has the lowest latency route between New York and London, now directly connects the Equinix NY4 and LD4 data centres, providing unprecedented round-trip latency transmission of sub58.95ms. Equinix's New York and London International Business Exchange (IBX) data centre campuses serve as carrierneutral landing locations for Hibernia Networks to connect its low latency subsea cable route. This new connectivity between New York and London allows for a direct fiber pathway under the Atlantic ocean, connecting the European and North American continents with the lowest latency, supporting the ultrafast connectivity requirements of the financial exchange markets between two of the world’s largest financial markets.

IT infrastructure shapes DC market IT infrastructure firms continue to dictate the shape of the major European data centre markets, according to global real estate advisor, CBRE. In recent months the large-scale IT and web companies have begun to deploy their infrastructure in markets away from Amsterdam, which they had been very active in, to the likes of London. Consequently London had most take-up across the key European FLAP - Frankfurt, London, Amsterdam and Paris – markets for the second consecutive quarter. The knock-on-effect of the IT Infrastructure companies moving across markets is affecting overall market dynamics. For instance, pricing is becoming more disruptive as operators are seeing proof that having IT infrastructure firms in a facility will actively draw in new enterprise customers. As such, securing these deals is increasingly competitive. As a whole, the European colocation market has grown by nearly 6% since the beginning of year with supply increasing by 11MW in the quarter to reach 816MW. This follows investment into the sector hitting $8.7 billion in the second quarter driven by increased M&A activity. In terms of take-up, Europe will need a

particularly strong fourth quarter to reach the 60MW level of annual take-up which is considered par for the major markets. Andrew Jay, EMEA head of data centre solutions, at CBRE explains: “IT infrastructure companies, at present, are dominating the European data centre market. We’ve seen overall demand dynamics mirror what these firms are doing. The implications are wider as well, operators are now seeing proof that deploying an on-off ramp to the cloud in your data centre will attract enterprise customers so securing the IT Infrastructure providers to your premises is becoming vital. “Separately, the issue of data protection has developed significantly since the Safe Harbour ruling. Such concerns have been important in keeping demand strong in Frankfurt, exemplified by Microsoft’s announcement of its partnership with Deutsche Telekom and the expectation is that this theme will persist in the coming months with some markets gaining significantly.”

No half-baked Close to the edge plans from PHS S PHS Data Solutions has invested £1million in a new state-ofthe-art data shredding facility in Pontefract, West Yorkshire, which was officially opened by Great British Bake Off finalist Ian Cumming and the Mayor of Wakefield at a ceremony on November 4 2015. The star baker and Mayor June Cliffe MBE were among the invited guests for the formal launch of the new plant. The site, located at the fittingly named Data Drive on the South Kirkby Business Park, is expected to handle 15,000 tonnes of confidential paper a year and is predicted to generate more than £30million into the local economy over its lifetime.

8 DATAcentreMANAGEMENT WINTER 2015

SE Enterprise Telecoms has announced phase two of Project Edge. ‘Edge 2’ adds a further 33 BT exchanges to its existing 13,700km, 232 Point of Presence (PoP) UKwide fibre network. The deployment adds another 50,000 prime city centre business postcodes to the 200,000 introduced by phase one of Project Edge. This latest initiative follows the success of the original Project Edge network expansion announced in November 2013 that saw 54 new Exchange PoPs – many of which were in London – added to the SSE Enterprise Telecoms network. With the additional PoPs and by interconnecting with other leading fibre network service providers in the UK, as part of Edge Plus, SSE Enterprise Telecoms initiated full UK-wide coverage. This first phase of the expansion made SSE Enterprise Telecoms a more compelling Ethernet provider for service providers which require reliable connectivity to multiple locations

up and down the country. The Edge 2 initiative enables SSE Enterprise Telecoms’ customers to purchase additional Ethernet services directly. In doing so, customers benefit from SSE Enterprise Telecoms’ reputable delivery service wrap and highly resilient, extensive national network. “Our most recent network expansion initiatives have focused on adding 31 commercial data centres in London and Manchester that can deliver 1Gb and 10Gb waves in a week” said Colin Sempill, managing director of SSE Enterprise Telecoms. “Edge 2 will see us invest once again in national Ethernet services, to meet the clear demand for high quality Ethernet connectivity across the nation revealed by Edge 1. By extending our core network capability to an additional 33 exchanges as part of Edge 2, our customers will now have even greater access to our high quality Ethernet and unique, best-of-breed service.”

WWW.THEstack.COM

NEWS

NEWS IN BRIEF ■ RE-STRUCTURE Eaton-Williams Group has announced that following the re-structure of business segments by its parent company, Nortek Inc., it is now part of Nortek Global HVAC in Europe. “Being a part of Nortek Global HVAC in Europe, signals the start of an exciting new chapter. We value the relationships we have with all our stakeholders and are committed to growing the business, creating new opportunities and delivering better value for our customers,” explains Ian Sams, managing director of Eaton-Williams. The alignment with Nortek Global HVAC provides a stronger platform for Eaton-Williams to be a greater player in the market. There are considerable synergies between the other businesses in Nortek Global HVAC Europe operationally, and in the markets they all serve. “We can leverage our combined strengths to deliver a more focused approach to delivering air handling solutions in our key markets. Our mission is to continue creating innovative products that are competitively priced, whilst delivering great customer service,” adds Sams.

WWW.THEstack.COM

Data centre traffic continues to grow ABB expands A newly published market study from BSRIA shows that – with the CISCO Cloud Index forecasting – data centre traffic will grow at 23 per cent CAGR, reaching 8.6 zettabytes by its 2018. The move to off-site data centres is at the heart of this growing trend, however, it is not uncommon for data-critical organisations to retain enterprise data centres on their premises. modular heat exchangers and overhead water as a natural coolant Cooling within the data terminal units. These are when warm and dry air is centre is a fundamental technology intended to be more expensive being humidified allowing for function of the smooth and efficient operation, however, the cooling equipment is a major share of the cost within the CAPEX outlay. A combination of energy efficiency measures and rising energy costs have resulted in companies searching for ways of lowering their PUE (Power Usage Effectiveness) and operating costs. It is especially crucial for the colocation data centres. In particular Big Data companies have been criticised for their inefficiency which is seeing their adoption of newer technologies. Following amendments in the ASHRAE 2011 (still need to identify that relaxed temperature and humidity requirements for the data centres, the cooling segment of the data centre market is undergoing some dramatic changes and opened opportunities for a range of technologies). Traditional close control (CRAC and CRAH) is still fit for purpose in many countries, however, it is gradually losing its share to newer technologies, especially evaporative cooling. Evaporative cooling capitalises on the feature of

significant savings in operating costs. Evaporative cooling can either utilise the pressurised or compressed water mist (evaporative system) or wetted pads media (adiabatic system). It is also divided into direct (direct external air is allowed into the data hall) and indirect (when external air does not mix with the internal air within the data hall). Lone Hansen, WMI Manager – I.T. Cable Group, BSRIA, said: “One major downside with evaporative systems is that they consume water (which can itself be an issue if supplies are scarce) and the evaporative process can cause scaling of pipework and heat exchangers in high pressure systems. The products are more suitable for new build projects due to the space and height requirements, as they are mostly large units. The use of water also raises the issue of legionella, which needs to be given consideration in the design and operation of a facility.” Close coupled solutions embrace a range of products, located close to the heat source: in-row, rack, rear door

and more suitable at higher densities racks. Liquid (direct on-chip or immersion cooling) cooling is taking the water or other source of heat rejection (Novec 1230) directly to the server. Depending on application and the technology chosen the server equipment can be completely submersed into the coolant. However, there is still a certain stigma around liquids being at the heart of the IT equipment and it still remains a rather niche product, used only to deal with extremely high densities in HPC segment (_gt;35kW per rack). Both the UK and the US are major data centre users sharing a similar profile for the choice of cooling technology used, however, it is believed that as more applications move to offsite data centres, operators will increasingly be looking for locations in low cost countries, this will drive the use of different technology used in these newer application. The US accounts for approximately 40 per cent of the worldwide precision cooling market. It is the market with the largest share of the evaporative cooling, representing 26 per cent of the total market. UK has traditionally been a big Data Centre market, being Europe’s main banking and financial centre. However, recently there has been a move to the cloud and IT companies that are now at the forefront of the Data Centre investment in the UK.

ABB has expanded its modular UPS technology for use in large and mid-sized data centres, server rooms and other IT infrastructure applications with a 480V UL version of the Conceptpower DPA 500. With over 15 years of experience in designing and manufacturing UPS systems in Europe and Asia, ABB now brings this expertise to the UL market in North America. Initially launched as a 400V IEC version in 2013, the Conceptpower DPA 500 is the only true online, double conversion modular UPS on the market that is easily scaled to provide up to 3 MW of clean, reliable power. The fundamental component of the UPS is 100 kW slide-in modules. Five of these module sets can be installed in a single frame, and six frames can be configured in parallel. UPS modules can be added to the system as power requirements grow, thus avoiding the need to over specify the initial design configuration.

DATAcentreMANAGEMENT WINTER 2015 9

RETRO

A brief history of DATA CENTRE TIME Data Centre Management has come a long way since the first issue in late 2006 and as we look back over the years so has the industry. As an example on how the industry has grown Data Centre World launched in 2008 in the Barbican with around 50 exhibitors. Last year’s show had over 300 exhibitors plus had Cloud Expo attached. Come to think of it, when we started cloud computing was not really part of the industry vernacular. You can’t stop people talking about it now. We thought it was the right time to go back and look at what has happened down the years, and it is interesting to see which prediction have come true... 2006 DCM is launched in the Autumn of 2006. The market in the UK is just beginning to take off, with new players entering the market on a monthly basis.

DATAcentreMANAGEMENT SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 2006

POWER TRIPS

A new report from consultancy BroadGroup forecasts that managed services in Europe will almost triple in value by 2011 to £6.2 billion. Managed services have emerged from a small base to an opportunity experiencing growth currently running at 20% per annum, and approximately equal in size to the combined revenues for web hosting and colocation.

Datacentre CDUs

OVER VIRTUALIZATION Don’t overplay your hand

INSIDE: News • Linuxworld 2006 • Storage Expo

Google begins to build a worldwide string of data centres, including a site in Oregon, in an effort to increase user response time. The extensive new complex will

handle billions of search queries a day and a growing portfolio of other Internet services. Google is estimated to have more than 450,000 servers dispersed over at least 25 locations worldwide. 2007 Co-location begins to become a major part of the UK market and The Green Grid is launched. Investment is coming into the UK and data centre space is running out. Virtualization is also coming on the agenda for companies. EMC unveils the EMC Energy Efficiency Services, a set of assessment and planning services designed to help customers maximise energy efficiency in the data centre. The company also introduced the EMC Power Calculator, a tool that enables EMC to provide customers with accurate energy consumption data and cooling requirements. A new report from BroadGroup's Data Centre Practice assesses for the first time, player strategies in the carrier neutral data centre market in the UK. Revealing the structural changes underway, and sustained further growth supported by a migration to third party outsourcing by large enterprises, the report predicts that although a limited increase in space will become available over the next few years, prices by 2010

10 DATAcentreMANAGEMENT WINTER 2015

will have doubled. A study finds that IT Managers across Europe are so burdened with the routine maintenance of their existing IT infrastructure, that they are not able to take advantage of innovative IT services that can drive down costs, automate IT management and free up resources that will help drive better business results. A report in the Sunday Times says that Scotland Yard has uncovered evidence that Al-Qaeda has been plotting to bring down the internet in Britain. Intel and Microsoft throw their weight behind the formal launch of the Green Grid, an industry-wide consortium dedicated to curbing datacentre power consumption. Iomart acquires five UK datacentres in the £11m purchase of a controlling interest in Ezee DSL Ltd. The company is taking a significant foothold in the datacentre market at a time when demand is surging through increased home and office broadband traffic. Interxion invests up to EUR 50 Million to further expand its data centre footprint across Europe by adding approximately 8,000 sqm of net sellable space in 2007. 43% of data centres are running out

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RETRO

IT decision makers, security has been ranked as the biggest IT issue. The research was carried out for infrastructure experts Siemon, and recorded 97 per cent of respondents ranking security high or very high in importance.

of physical space and power density in racks is at an all time high, a survey by the Aperture Research Institute has discovered. Managed services are set to increase significantly over the next five years according to a new report by Butler Group. However the report, entitled ‘Managed Services’, confirms that although many organisations have developed sourcing strategies, they have lacked the discipline of managing third-party relationships as closely as they should be. Research finds that only 29% of IT directors said they were using virtualisation in live business critical environments because they are afraid of the risks of using the technology in their live environments and systems. APC demonstrates a fuel cell unit that fits into a standard data centre rack, aimed at displacing traditional diesel generators whose job is to supply backup power. The fuel cell is aimed at installations where environmental concerns outweigh cost. A new report by Datamonitor reveals that despite the hype over managed services becoming essential in the SMB (small to medium size business) space, the majority of SMBs in the UK are still reluctant to become reliant on someone else managing their IT issues. London has been hit by another building space shortage as many City banks continue to pile more hardware into already overcrowded data centres. To overcome space and power limitations, many financial institutions are considering adopting a modular data centre design to split critical trading applications with back office systems. The rate at which computers and data centres are using power will double in five years, a rate so rapid that the U.S. will need 10 more electric power plants over that period just to keep up, according to a report by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). The UK situation is not much better, according to Netcetera. New research conducted for COLT has revealed that more than 88% of major UK businesses expect to see an increased investment in on-demand services by 2009. 2008 The banking crash should mean a slight pause in data centre growth, but this simply does not

On average, top UK retailers are overspending by £1.25 million a year on the power needed to run their data centres which can equate to 50 per cent of total data centre costs and 10 per cent of their total energy bills. CB Richard Ellis has announced that take up in the first quarter of 2008 London data centre market has been impacted by the current constraints in the capital markets, with no corporate take up and abnormally low figures generally.

happen. Corporate IT departments are predicted to decrease in size. The IT contractor is now becoming a major factor in IT departments.

A study from IDC has put the energy issue that data centres are facing in Europe on the map, throwing some light on its actual impact on organizations. The research shows how the amount of energy required by servers and data centres is climbing at a worrying speed, and has grown annually by more than 13% between 2006 and 2007.

A survey by the Aperture Research Institute says that data centres are aging and companies are not planning ahead or demonstrating timely investment in new data centres. Three quarters of UK businesses plan to increase their use of third party data centre services to counter the growing cost and complexity of managing highly secure data centres in-house. According to new research for COLT, half of UK businesses are already using some degree of third party data centre management today, with 48% planning to increase this immediately - putting demand in the UK ahead of other European countries. A survey of delegates at Data Centre World reveals that 40 per cent of those questioned are reluctant to embrace virtualisation, because of the perceived management headache.

DATAcentreMANAGEMENT MARCH/APRIL 2009

Controlling the information stream

IT SECURITY Are you as secure as you think?

RUNNING ON EMPTY? Should you be investing in ILM? INSIDE: DCW Review • ILM • Management

DATAcentreMANAGEMENT M AY / J U N E 2 0 0 8

Controlling the information stream

Fujitsu Siemens Computers predicts that corporate IT departments will reduce by 50 per cent in size over the next decade. The company believes that some sectors will see even further shrinkage of in-house IT teams, as companies look to consolidate their IT architectures and outsource activities.

POWER MANAGEMENT

The British Computer Society (BCS) welcomes the publication of a European code of conduct for data centre operators. BCS sees this as a sign that the industry is beginning to address the issue of carbon emissions which current forecasts compare to the level from the aviation industry. New research conducted by HP reveals that data centres across Europe are critically close to exceeding their limits, with the majority having reached 82% of their full capacity.

Are you switched on?

Telehouse Europe is to invest an initial £80 million in a new build, which will almost double its London Docklands data centre facilities. Hitachi Data Systems says it has created the world’s most eco-friendly and power-efficient data centre - designed to achieve a 1.6 PUE (Power Usage Effectiveness) rating by The Green Grid. In a European, multi sector research study of

INSIDE: News • Data Centre Design • Linux

DATAcentreMANAGEMENT

STRUCTURED CABLING

Chloride says that businesses should consider the costs of being unprepared for power losses in the lead up to and during the 2012 Olympic games. The elevated risk of power interruptions or sub-standard quality threatens London’s IT infrastructure, which could be compromised by any power fluctuation lasting a few milliseconds.

Can it cut costs?

FILE AREA NETWORKS

Are they the answer? INSIDE: News • Storage • Security Basics

13 DATAcentreMANAGEMENT WINTER 2015

2009 Data centre space continues to be put under pressure, but there is some easing in the financial markets so investors are able to invest in new data centres. Cloud computing and virtualisation begin to be talked about!

Chloride has completed the acquisition of the Siemens UPS Systems UK operation.

RETRO

Digital Realty Trust has announced plans to build out the next phase of over 170,000 square feet of new turnkey Datacentres in five major metropolitan markets to meet escalating demand for its move-in ready datacentre space. Star has released statistics of internet traffic flowing through its UK-based data centres. The early group matches indicate that the FIFA 2010 World Cup is likely to generate the highest online traffic in the UK of any event. Worldwide cloud services revenue is forecast to reach $68.3 billion in 2010, a 16.6 per cent increase from 2009 revenue of $58.6 billion, according to Gartner, Inc. The industry is poised for strong growth through 2014, when worldwide cloud services revenue is projected to reach $148.8 billion.

Gartner gives DCM an overview of what Cloud Computing will be! Node4 opens its new data centre, DC3 in Wakefield. 2bm, celebrates its 7th anniversary with 100% growth in turnover to £4.5 million in only 2 years. The European Data Centre market continued to see a reduction in take-up in Quarter 2 2009, according to a report by CB Richard Ellis (CBRE). Microsoft has opened its first ‘mega data centre’ in Europe to meet continued growth in demand for its Online, Live and Cloud services. The $500 million total investment is part of Microsoft’s long-term commitment in the region. Data centre managers lack any real understanding of their IT infrastructure’s energy costs and the demands they are placing on it, says new research from Loughborough University and on365, a specialist in the planning, installing, management and optimisation services. As data centre costs continue to rise and capacity needs continue to increase, companies are turning toward new computing models, such as virtualization, cloud computing and Software as a Service (SaaS), for adding computing capabilities, according to a report from The Aperture Research Institute (ARI). 2010 Reports come out that the data centre market has been affected by the recession, but conflicting reports say that 2010 will be a year of growth. The latter is proved correct. IT managers still don’t trust the cloud! There is increasing interest in modular data centres.

16 DATAcentreMANAGEMENT WINTER 2015

Sentrum releases research findings which show that over half (55%) of senior UK professionals believe that the European Union’s new Code of Conduct on Data Centre Energy Efficiency will finally reveal the true inefficiencies of data centres. The data centre industry has been affected by the recession in 2009. Gartner recently reported that the problems facing data centre managers will only get worse in 2010, but with the growth of The Cloud is this all set to change? Research conducted amongst European CIOs has found that 68% of respondents say security fears prevent them from adopting cloud computing services. This concern was especially high in the UK with 74 per cent of UK CIO’s highlighting security as the factor they consider to be the main barrier to cloud services adoption. Virgin Media Business launches with the company setting out an ambitious strategy to capitalise on a track record of double digit growth over the last three years. Digital Realty Trust has announced the results of a new study which shows that the majority of European companies are placing data centre expansion firmly on the corporate agenda in 2010. Savvis says that its Symphony Open public cloud infrastructure service is now available to European clients through its UK data centre in Slough. Research conducted across Europe, the Middle East and Africa (EMEA) by ISACA has found that a quarter of enterprises that already use cloud computing believe that the risks outweigh the benefits (a fifth in the UK), yet still carry on regardless.

Colt has launched the Colt Modular Data Centre, an approach to data centres which it says redefines the method of construction and delivery of large data centre halls. Energy-related costs account for approximately 12 per cent of overall data centre expenditure and are the fastestrising cost in the data centre, according to Gartner. Analysts said that data centre power, cooling and energy supply, and cost problems are likely to worsen during the next few years as organisations grow their technology infrastructure. 2011 Cloud computing looks set to give the economy a boost and the first DCIM tool is launched. This is clearly the first of many! The Green Grid creates two new metrics designed to help improve the sustainability of data centre facilities by measuring the effectiveness of carbon and water use tied specifically to the IT energy infrastructure they contain. Jones Lang LaSalle’s fifth Data Centre Barometer reveals that the mood in the data centre sector is generally positive with over half of survey respondents recognising that occupier demand is on the rise, whilst supply of appropriate stock is becoming increasingly restricted. Research by the Centre of Economics and Business Research (CEBR) reports that widespread adoption of cloud computing could give the top five EU economies a 763bn euro boost over five years and create 2.4m jobs. Rackspace has launched its cloud infrastructure to provide customers with a European based infrastructure for their cloud-based data footprint. Overall vacancy in carrier neutral data centres in the top five European markets has reached a historic low of 22.8

RETRO

per cent, according to the latest research released by CB Richard Ellis. VMware has published the results of a comprehensive study finding that over 60% of SMBs have already moved at least some of their infrastructure or applications to the cloud. Emerson introduces the industry’s first comprehensive data centre infrastructure management (DCIM) solution, enabling customers to manage both computing technologies and critical infrastructure equipment such as cooling and power via a single platform. Moore’s Law is being challenged and independent research shows that by 2017 demand for 40G is expected to exceed 10G as the standard rate of transmission between server and switch in the data centre, with 100G following soon after. Worldwide data centre hardware spending is projected to reach $98.9 billion in 2011, up 12.7 percent from 2010 spending of $87.8 billion, according to Gartner, data centre hardware spending is forecast to total $106.4 billion in 2012, and surpass $126.2 billion in 2015. 2012 The London Olympics comes and goes without incident, despite the doom mongers predicting massive outages all over London. Intelligent PDUs become more popular and energy usage is continuing to rise. Big data is also now on the agenda. As one of the largest global markets, it is estimated that the UK houses up to 7.6 million square metres (81m sq.ft.) of data centre space - an area equivalent to 14 US Pentagons (one of the world’s largest buildings at 6m sq.ft) or 900 football pitches. Eaton launches a new range of enclosure power distribution units (ePDU’s) that provide Intelligent Power distribution enabling data centres to monitor energy usage, optimise available power and control the TCO. Three-quarters (76%) of UK data centres expect their energy consumption to increase, or remain the same in 2012. Of these, over a fifth (21%) predict that their energy consumption will increase by 25% or more this year. London Data Exchange launches a new

trademarked cloud colocation service ‘DCaaS’ – Data Centre as a Service. The DCaaS service is aimed at cloud and on demand IT service providers deploying their cloud infrastructure within a specialist third party data centre facility. London Data Exchange says that its 22,000sqft data centre facility, named LDeX1, has officially opened. The colocation facility is situated in North London UK CIOs are concerned that the upcoming Olympic Games will affect their business, according to a survey conducted by ControlCircle, a leading UK managed services provider. The eighth Jones Lang LaSalle European Data Centre Barometer report, indicates that although prospects for the European economy have not markedly improved since Autumn 2011, respondents appear to have gained a positive feeling towards the supply and demand balance of the European data centre market.

businesses recognise the competitive advantage associated with Big Data. This marks a significant increase with just over a third (34%) recognising its value back in 2010.

Hitachi Data Systems has launched its first European big data research report which states that only 10% of organisations surveyed have already started on the process of big data exploitation with some 20% to start in the next 24 months The boom in revenue from Internetconnected devices, predicted to generate £2.9 trillion a year by 2020, will require significant investment to upgrade data centre infrastructure if it is ever to happen, says Brocade.

SPRING 2015

SHOW PREVIEW It’s time to register for DCW 2015 I N S I D E :

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VMware has unveiled an updated cloud management portfolio, including significant enhancements to the management products in the recently released VMware vCloud Suite. 2013 Efficiency is the watchword of 2013 with companies looking to become more efficient and save money. New data centres and co-lo sites open along the Thames corridor. If you see an unmarked building on the Slough Trading Estate chances are it’s a data centre!

JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2010

Demand for data centre space from technology, media and telecoms occupiers across Europe continued to drive demand in the second quarter of 2012 according to CBRE. At 22,685 sq m, overall take-up for H1 in 2012 was 29% ahead of the same period in 2011 which saw 17,545 sq m leased.

DATAcentreMANAGEMENT Controlling the information stream

STORAGE What are the core issues?

Eaton launches the Eaton 9PX Uninterruptible Power Supply (UPS), the next generation of energy efficient 5 to 11 kVA future-proof UPSs for virtualised environments. Cisco forecasts global data centre traffic to grow fourfold and reach a total of 6.6 zettabytes annually by 2016. A report released by IBM and the Saïd School of Business at the University of Oxford has found almost 63% of UK and Ireland

INSIDE: DCW Preview • News • Virtualization

SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 2009

DATAcentreMANAGEMENT Controlling the information stream

RESCUE TIME Can outsourcing save you?

RING OF FIRE Do you know your power connectivity options?

CBRE says that co-location take up of data centre space in London and Paris is on a par with the total levels reached at the end of 2011, at 12,305 sq m in London and 5,540 sq m in Paris, against the figures of 12,120 sq m and 5,590 sq m seen in 2011 respectively. Ovum announces the latest findings from its ‘2013 Trends to Watch: Data Centre Technology’ report which states that next year enterprises will focus more on reducing costs and improving data centre efficiency. Datum opens its flagship, environmentally intelligent facility as part of its plans to deliver the most energy efficient and flexible colocation on the market. The data centre, designed and built by Keysource, is located at the highsecurity QinetiQ Cody Technology Park in

INSIDE: Cloud Computing • News • Cabling

WINTER 2015 DATAcentreMANAGEMENT 17

RETRO

Farnborough, Hampshire. Infinity SDC opens its new data centre facility in the heart of the UK’s IT corridor. The Thames Valley is home to one of the highest concentration of IT and computing companies in Europe. Schneider Electric introduces StruxureWare Data Centre Operation for co-location, a Data Centre Infrastructure Management (DCIM) application within the StruxureWare for Data Centres Software Suite, that is specifically designed to address the needs of data centres with multiple tenants. Despite the current hype and buzz around all-flash storage arrays, a recent survey found that most British businesses see little practical reason for deploying it. Low and stable electricity prices are likely to make the U.S. a target for datacentre investment at Europe’s expense, according to a report published by 451 Research. Lower electricity prices are also expected to impact U.S. investment in energy-efficient technologies. CloserStill Media announces the acquisition of Data Centre World and Data Centre Management magazine for an undisclosed sum. A survey found that whilst almost three quarters of decision makers and influencers are now familiar with Data Centre Infrastructure Management (DCIM) there is still a long way to go before the adoption of this integrated approach to management and monitoring becomes widespread. The Data Centre Alliance (DCA) says that, data centre operators are having real difficulties finding suitable new employees for positions in what is possibly the least known but fastest growing area of the economy. A report in The Guardian says that Google in its latest results, invested $1.6bn on building data centres in the three months from April to June Most global organisations have too many data centres in too many countries, according to Gartner. Gartner said that in order for businesses to save costs and optimise service delivery, they need a twin data centre topology for each continent of major business activity.

18 DATAcentreMANAGEMENT WINTER 2015

2014 Improving business conditions and the birth of IoT see data centre growth continuing and that power outages were becoming more common in the UK. Is this the shape of things to come? The European Commission awards a €2.9m grant to a consortium of manufacturers, users, and academics to develop new technologies to build smarter, more energy-efficient data centres. CenturyLink announces further investment in its hosting capabilities with plans to expand its global data centre presence in eight markets during 2014. Data centre operators in Europe have continued to benefit from an improving business environment in the first quarter seeing strong market interest amount to the best first quarter results since 2008, according to the latest research from CBRE. The number of power outages in the UK more than doubles, potentially costing UK businesses hundreds of thousands of pounds according to Eaton’s latest Blackout Tracker report.

SPRING 2015

2015 The data centre market becomes more mature and with that needs to employ more skilled people, which there is a distinct lack of. SHOW PREVIEW It’s time to register for DCW 2015 I N S I D E :

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DATAcentreMANAGEMENT J U LY / A U G U S T 2 0 1 3

Controlling the information stream

New research undertaken by GVA Connect, showed that the take-up of data centre space by end-users such as enterprises and government agencies was up by a massive 67 per cent over this time last year. MOVING ON Will you be changing your cabling?

New independent research commissioned by Colt Technology Services amongst European IT managers, reveals widespread concern around the impact of complexity on planning data centre infrastructure strategy. The survey found that 70 per cent of IT managers were concerned about the complexity of planning data centre strategy. According to MigSolv, nearly 80% of the UK’s data centres will become unsuitable in just five years time.

I N S I D E :

Over 50% of organisations that host some or all of their data offsite identified security as their main concern, according to research conducted by Pulsant.

Research commissioned by Zenium Technology Partners has given a clear indication that the skills gap facing the data centre sector will continue to be a critical business concern going in to 2015. 451 Research has outlined the key trends that it expects to dominate the IT industry agenda over the coming year: Containers, Convergence, Cloud Security, Closets, Crowd Workers and Coexistence.

Cabling • News • Power

DATAcentreMANAGEMENT M AY / J U N E 2 0 1 3

Controlling the information stream

Equinix officially opens its sixth London data centre, LD6, in Slough. 451 Research projects the global colocation market annualized revenue to reach $36.1bn by 2017 in its latest quarterly Datacenter KnowledgeBase (DCKB) release.

DESIGN WORKS How efficient design can save you money I N S I D E :

Data Centre Design • News • Power

DATAcentreMANAGEMENT MARCH/APRIL 2011

Global Switch has become the first large scale, carrier neutral, multi tenanted data centre provider in London to participate in the Climate Change Agreement (CCA).

euNetworks has launched its dc connect service, an £8million infrastructure investment providing near instant, scalable high bandwidth connectivity across 35 data centres in London with onward connectivity to 250 data centres in Europe.

Controlling the information stream

MANAGEMENT Is the squeeze now on? I N S I D E :

ILM • Security • News • Convergence

A study of 5,700 employees across Europe, Middle East and Africa (EMEA) including 1,000 employees in the UK, found that, far from being confined to the ‘millennial’ or ‘Generation Z’ demographics, digital skills are a priority for all employees – impacting both their own career development and the broader business. New Q2 data from Synergy Research Group shows that HP has gained leadership of the cloud infrastructure equipment market, having lagged closely behind Cisco through 2013 and 2014.

RETRO

Munters TURNS 60! Munters is celebrating its 60th birthday, and the company says that the spirit of

“There are many industries where we see the potential to accomplish a lot with our technology. For example, the world's food production needs to both increase and become more efficient in the future as the population grows. Otherwise, there is a risk of food shortages and the climate impact from production becoming too great. The challenge is that many of today's cooling solutions consume far too much energy and are not as optimised for food production as they could be,” says John Peter Leesi, Munters CEO.

which when properly cooled can increase capacity while reducing power consumption. Consumption often drops by up to 75 percent compared to traditional climate solutions for data centres. “Another example where there is great potential is air conditioning, which accounts for a very large share of power consumption in warmer countries. It is often possible to make it far more efficient, and the company founder Carl Munters was working with innovations in this area even back in his day,” explained John.

Climate impact both locally and globally “A large and growing part of trade and industry is dependent on the ability to control the climate. With today's technology, it's practically never impossible to create the environment needed. The challenge instead lies in doing this in an efficient and precise manner. This requires us to continually develop new technology to achieve the perfect environment for a particular area of application,” continued John. It's a win-win situation, not only for the local climate in everything from a supermarket to an aircraft cockpit, but also for the climate in general. One example is in the data centre,

60 years of innovation This year, Munters celebrates its 60th anniversary and is one of the most well-established Swedish industrial companies. The head office is still in Sweden (in Kista), while the company as a whole has become increasingly global over the years and now has operations located throughout the world. Munters is found in more than 30 countries, has SEK 4 billion in turnover and is owned by Nordic Capital Fund VII. “It feels good to celebrate that we have become such an 'old' company while remaining one of the most innovative companies in our industry,” says John Peter Leesi.

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passionate innovation lives on

unters is the original innovator in climate control since 1955. Founded by ingenious inventor and entrepreneur Carl Munters, the company was built around his insights to the laws of thermodynamics in combination with an ability to translate that understanding into groundbreaking technology. During his lifetime Carl Munters applied for nearly 1,000 patents, mostly within the areas of dehumidification and evaporative cooling. These two areas are core technologies within Munters. Today the legacy of innovation and engineering lives on within the company. The spirit of passionate innovator Carl Munters guides our daily work. The company he formed has now grown into a global corporation with 2600 employees in over 30 countries. Today, Munters is a global leader in energy-efficient solutions for optimising the air. The technology is often key to the customers and can also be part of the solution to many of the biggest challenges facing society. One example is the need to reduce the world's energy consumption in the future to be able to stop global warming. Energyefficient solutions for cooling and moisture are an important part of this.

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WINTER 2015 DATAcentreMANAGEMENT 19

RETRO

Closer to THE EDGE Arun Shenoy of Schneider says that new drivers are pushing data centres ever closer to the edge

20 DATAcentreMANAGEMENT WINTER 2015

iewed over the long term, many trends in IT appear to be cyclical. At the dawn of computing, in the age of the mainframe, IT processing and storage were centralised and accessed remotely by users at “dumb” terminals. The PC explosion from the 1980s onwards delivered more and more power and applications to individual users’ desktops and laptops. We are currently in the era of Cloud Computing in which for a variety of reasons—technological, managerial and financial—applications are hosted in large data centres and delivered to remote users of a variety of access devices ranging from smart phones to tablets to high-performance notebook PCs. The efficiency of centrally managing application upgrades and data backups makes this desirable; the availability of high-performance networks makes it achievable. We appear to have gone full circle, using relatively simple devices to access hugely powerful centralised data centres. There is a major difference: the amount of data being generated by

today’s multimedia devices is vast compared with the relatively simple alphanumeric data of the mainframe era. We are rapidly arriving at a point where the networks themselves are becoming a limiting factor, at least in the way they are currently being used, or over used. It is also a certainty that the amount of data flowing to and from data centres is only going to increase. A most important driver is the much anticipated “Internet of Things” which will see all manner of physical products equipped with the ability to transmit and receive data for the purposes of maintenance, support and traceability. Research firm Gartner predicts that there will be 25 billion such products, including mobile devices, smart appliances, sensors, cars and industrial machines, by 2020. Such massive increases in the amount of data transmitted will simply not allow ever greater centralisation of data storage. We are now at another turn of the cycle, where more and more data and processing power is being pushed away from the huge data centres at the heart of a network to smaller data centres at the edge.

These local, or Edge, data centres, are coming to prominence to help reduce the flow of data across what used to be called the Information Superhighway. They are instead facilitating the construction of smaller, local information ring roads which will be a much better fit for many purposes. It is likely that this trend will only increase, eventually leading to small data centres appearing in small offices and even residential areas. The need for smaller traffic loops to cope with the influx of data from phenomena such as the Internet of Things is driving the need for Edge data centres. To fulfil this need, specialist technology vendors are offering appropriate solutions such as Micro Data Centres. The essential definition of a MicroDC according to Schneider Electric is a self-contained, secure computing environment that includes all the storage, processing and networking required to run the customer’s applications. Importantly, they are assembled and tested in a factory environment and ship in a single enclosure that includes all necessary power, cooling, security and associated management tools, especially DCIM software. Whether they are deployed as lowcost and quick-to-assemble upgrades to existing IT facilities in SME organisations, or whether they are deployed at the Edge of a network to complement Cloud computing by helping to reduce unnecessary internet traffic and reduce network latency, Micro Data Centres will play an essential role in the computing landscape of the future, empowering the increasingly connected Internet of Things, allowing regional or departmental server rooms to expand reliably and cost effectively and enabling the Cloud to develop a robust reliable Edge.

UPS

EU REGULATIONS FOR UPSs – how to meet new environmental demands With increasing demand for capacity, data centre electricity consumption is growing continuously - making the environmental impact of data centres, and specifically UPS systems, an issue often discussed and one being tackled by new EU legislations. As UPSs are one of the major contributors to the electricity demand of data centres, the European Commission is introducing regulation to ensure the environmental impact of UPSs is minimised throughout their operation. Alan Luscombe, director at Uninterruptible Power Supplies, explores how modern, modular UPS systems can facilitate data centre operators to minimise the environmental impact whilst ensuring the maximum power availability throughout the life of a UPS.

n 2013, data centres accounted for 3% of the world’s electricity consumption – and that share is growing. Apple, for example, has recently announced a $1.9bn investment in its first European data centres, in Denmark and Ireland. Within the context of such large-scale consumption, any energy efficiency loss will be hugely significant – and, according to Google, UPSs create one of the largest power losses within data centres. Accordingly, UPSs have come under the microscope within the European Commission’s Product Environmental Footprint Category Rules (PEFCR), driven by the wider directive 'Building a Single Market for Green Products'. This will very possibly lead to new regulations with the intention to reduce the environmental footprint of data centres. The specific element of data centre performance that the PEF

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apparently focuses on is power supply, with a dedicated category for UPSs. Operators may well find themselves required to perform life cycle assessments (LCAs) and abide by the PEFCR for their European operations’ power supplies. Against this background it is essential for data centre operators to achieve the highest possible UPS energy efficiency through the system they choose, the way they configure it and how they operate it – while also maintaining the highest level of availability, which for many users remains the top priority. In fact, UPSs today can satisfy both these objectives at data centre power levels, by using the right power semiconductor technology and design topology. This achieves a considerable saving in both size and weight by eliminating the transformer. In a typical implementation, the footprint is reduced by over a half, while the weight diminishes to just a quarter of its earlier value. The scale of these reductions has had a profound impact on the way UPS systems can be built and the resulting efficiency, availability and scalability they offer. The ultimate embodiment of these advantages is found in the three-phase, rack-mount modular UPS systems now available. Instead of a single, inflexible freestanding implementation, a modular UPS comprises one or more small transportable modules that can be incrementally plugged into or removed

from a UPS frame to achieve exactly the capacity required. Efficiency in operation, and from cradle to grave The underlying transformerless design is highly efficient, offering about 5% improvement over the earlier transformer, equivalent with an efficiency-level up to 96.1% over the entire load spectrum. This allows considerable cost savings due to reduced electricity consumption and less demand for cooling. The power factor is improved, which minimises the sizing of cables and switchgear, and may also reduce electricity running costs. Eco-mode operation, while not suitable for every application, offers the possibility of further improving power efficiency to 99%. The modular approach is also efficient in closely matching the load size, even if it changes significantly over time. In one system - available today from UPS Ltd., an installation could start as one frame populated with a single 100 kW module. As the data centre grows, capacity can be added with 100 kW at a time, until the frame is fully populated with five modules providing 500 kW capacity; a process known as vertical scaling. Up to six frames can be paralleled (horizontally scaled), providing up to 3 MW capacity. Throughout the expansion, the data centre owner’s capital costs have been minimised. Additionally, the reduced demand for hardware reduces life cycle energy

UPS

Analysis & Reports Server room 3

17.02.2015 to 19.02.2015

Figure 1: Traditional sizing method

Graphical presentation

impact from raw material extraction through materials processing, manufacture, distribution, use, repair and maintenance, and disposal or recycling. Modularity, redundancy and availability Modularity can also increase availability through redundancy. A single rack in the above system, for example, could support a 400 kW load using five modules in an N+1 redundant configuration. The system also allows modules to be hot-swapped, reducing mean time to repair (MTTR) to around 30 minutes. This has a hugely positive impact on availability, which becomes extremely high at 99.9999% or ‘six nines’. Conclusion Data centres globally consume huge

amounts of electricity, much due to their UPSs. The European Commission, being aware of this, is introducing legislation to reduce UPSs’ life cycle carbon footprint. For data centre owners, one answer to this issue is to use modular UPS technology, which allows high energy efficiency and highly efficient hardware use, without compromising on power availability.

17/02/2015

Data logger 1 (°C)

18/02/2015

Data logger 2 (°C)

19/02/2015

Data logger 3 (°C)

Tabular presentation Alarms

In the next issue: DCW preview

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Figure 2: Modern modular sizing method

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RETRO

A tailor-made SERVICE With birthdays in mind, we caught up with Splice Group, a company celebrating its big 25-year milestone

David Woodhead

Andy Varley

plice Group is a fibre management solutions company offering in-building fibre optics to data centres. The main office is based in Yorkshire, in the north of England, but during its 25-year history the company has branched out into many countries across the world with bases in the Philippines, Germany, and the USA. With such a high level of success during its 25-year history, what was the starting point for Splice? David Woodhead, Owner and CEO, set up the company in June 1991. Having previously worked for large global organisations, he became quite frustrated in their approach. There are many advantages to partnering with large companies, but the downside was often that they did not offer the level of service and support that the customers deserved. It was often the case that some of the products and services offered were not the best fit for the UK market and David believed that there must be a better way. This is when he decided to form Splice and put a real focus on support. Andy Varley, head of global sales, has been with Splice for 21 years, he says: "Many of our competitors were very inflexible so that was one of the key reasons for starting the business. Larger corporations can be more prescriptive in their approach, expecting customers to adapt to their requirements rather than the other way around." A bespoke approach Splice differs from its competitors because the team provides a bespoke approach towards clients, tailoring solutions to customer needs. Andy says: "We try to work with our customers to understand what they need in order to provide them with the

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products that we manufacture. Almost all of our customers have something that's slightly tailor-made towards their application." John Byron, UK sales director, who will celebrate his 10th year with the company in 2016, explains: "This ethos and approach to our customers remains the same today. Rather than being a catalogue sales organisation, we work with our customers to provide them a solution and meet their needs." Andy adds: "The key is that 'one size fits all' is not always correct in this market. Our success lies in our ability to be adaptable in the products and services that we supply and better fit the applications of our customers." This is the detail that has remained true since the inception of the company and makes Splice really stand out to this day. The magical formula David believes that Splice's success is built on a couple of key factors. For one, the team has a fantastic understanding of what they do; the company offers fibre management solutions and services to a broad range of end users. The plan is to stay focused within an area of expertise as pushing out into different sectors would effectively dilute what Splice stands for. The key is to maintain customer satisfaction through excellent service John Byron

powered by expert knowledge from all staff. David recognises the importance of the staff at Splice: "We wouldn't be able to do this successfully if we didn't have a great team of knowledgeable, dedicated and hard working staff." He feels lucky to have recruited people who strive to build a flourishing business and meet the needs of Splice's customers. The team is also incredibly loyal, not many businesses can boast such a low turnover of key staff. This has a huge impact on the relationships Splice has built with clients, John says: "The longevity of our staff goes hand in hand with the longevity of the great customers that we've got because the two fit together. Our aim is to build partnerships rather than take the conventional sales approach." Another factor that makes Splice different is that it never takes on too much business, David explains: "We do not accept more than we can handle. I would rather give a great service to a focused number of clients, than too many customers receiving a reduced service." For this reason, Splice is smaller than some of our competitors but, David sums this up perfectly: "I'm happy with that because we are creative, we listen to our customers, we react and quickly adapt to the changes in the marketplace, and for these reasons I hope we'll be around for another 25 years."

SOLUTIONS FOR DATA CENTRES Cabling systems | Fibre products | Fibre containment

www.splicegroup.com SpliceGroup Europe: +44 (0)113 285 2536

RETRO

Is this THE FUTURE? DCM peers into its crystal ball and looks at the shape of things to come (or not!)

26 DATAcentreMANAGEMENT WINTER 2015

his time of year sees people trying to anticipate the future and what will be happening in the data centre market. My feeling is that there will be more consolidation in the market and that safe harbor will mean that businesses will not go down the route of chasing the cheapest energy abroad for their data centre. But what do I know! Following are a number of predictions that have come my way and which may or may not affect the data centre. You can decide their validity. Data Centres Find a Common Language - The Internet of Things (IoT) will not only impact future data centre architectures by increasing the volume of data that must be processed, it will also change data centre management— and the latter sooner than the former. (Emerson) 2016 will be the year of increased education/communication on the benefits of DCIM where more organizations will look to employ automated DCIM solutions, giving data centre managers more than half of

their time back that was previously allocated to manual processes. (Intel) 2016 will be the year of cloud security and ROI, a year when CISOs finally get the recognition they deserve, and the year that Europe and the US make up or break up when it comes to data privacy. (Accellion) The Neighborhood Data Centre Moves In - The growth in digital content consumption and data collection is challenging the centralised data centre model. While large data centres will continue to provide the majority of computing, they will increasingly be supported by edge facilities, or neighbourhood data centres, that provide low-latency content and applications to users or data processing and logic for IoT networks. (Emerson) While standards around 5G technology have yet to be finalised, a host of stakeholders are already engaged in trials. KPN, Ericsson, Huawei and the research institute TNO are planning to test a 5G network in the Netherlands later this year. Ericsson and Softbank have teamed up for tests in Tokyo; ZTE teamed has partnered with Korean operator KT to launch a 5G test bed in Seoul; Verizon Wireless is to field test 5G next year and has set itself the ambitious target of launching commercial services in 2017. With Intel and Nokia (among others) working to define 5G system specifications, expect a significant stepping up of activity as Tier 1 players firm up their plans in this area. (Juniper) With the emergence of wearables in the enterprise, 2016 stands to be the year of the first breach, or network intrusion, caused by a wrist-bound device. Until now wearable’s integration and reliance on a user’s smartphone has offered a layer of defense, creating a buffer between the device and the network. But as more wearables gain standalone Internet access, which is already beginning, employees with things like smart watches are going to be weakest link

in the security ecosystem. (Accellion) The traditional model of venture capital firms providing the seed funding for start-ups in the tech industry is being increasingly disrupted by a dramatic uplift in crowdfunding activity. Crowdfunding, where people invest small sums in projects, be they charitable causes, local projects or businesses, reportedly reached $16 billion in 2014, and is expected to more than double this year. Look out for the emergence of an array of new crowdfunding sites dedicated to tech start-ups in 2016, offering would-be investors equity in the company or alternative rewards. (Juniper) Countries are increasingly looking for geographic ownership of citizens’ data, in much the same way corporations demand control of highlysensitive information. We will see more nations taking action similar to the EU when they overthrew Safe Harbour, because not only does geographic ownership preserve privacy, it also offers an economic opportunity for local firms. (Accellion) While consumers have been lukewarm about wearable technology other than fitness devices, enterprise is taking to them in a big way. Smart glasses, semi-independent smartwatches and a range of motion sensing devices are expected to roll out to a range of deskless industries and government agencies in 2016. This follows many successful pilots in logistics, field services, law enforcement and customer services this year and last. Results from these show that, given the right execution, wearable tech could improve productivity by over 30%, although there are likely to be some negative reactions to their use in customer-facing industries where recording capabilities are obvious. (Juniper) 2016 is therefore shaping up to be an interesting year for the data centre industry, though I’m not sure I’ll be wearing my smart glasses to work quite yet!

RETRO

GAMATRONIC UK – 12 years of ‘’modular’’ An early entrant into the modular market Gamatronic UK has had a successful 12 years in business

amatronic UK – the early bird with the Modular UPS When first entering the UK market in 2001, Gamatronic, a well known UPS brand established in 1970 was about to make one of the biggest advancements in UPS technology, the introduction of the modular UPS system. Gamatronic’s first truly modular and ‘’hot swap technology’’ UPS was introduced to the UK market in 2003. Sharon Bar Zvi, Gamatronic international sales & marketing director

recalls ‘’ It was such a pioneer solution, the expectation from our R&D team were so high and they defiantly achieved it. The UPS had to not only be truly modular, but also very small, highly efficient & competitive priced. Did we succeed to change the market perception about vertical modular solution VS Horizontal in the beginning of 2000s. I would say yes, to a certain degree, hundreds of our customers put their trust in our product and ourselves. We had though a very strong resistance from some other UPS manufactures that today, have finally started to offer and promote the same technology’’ Dina Belkin, Gamatronic UK general manager says - “Today, I believe, we are in the strongest position ever. With 12 years of experience our technology has proved itself. Throughout these years we have continued to develop new features such as: unity output factor; touch screen controller; efficiency parameters, 25kW module that weights only 19Kg! For me, the

main thing is that Gamatronic has remained consistent if focusing on its expertise in Modular UPS solutions.’’ Gamatronic UK today is a full service organization, employing engineers, sales experts, and administration, offering the highest support including project management and maintenance of most UPS brands. Gamatronic’s team is driven by three main principles ‘professionalism, flexibility and creativity’. One of the benefits of the modular UPS is that it allows Gamatronic great flexibility keeping up to 800kVA/kW ready in stock. Recently one of its VIP customers had an emergency project where 125KW N+1 redundancy system that had to be delivered and commissioned within 24 hours. What Dina says about this is ‘’It was hectic and we basically worked on site 24 hours straight but we did it… as mentioned before it's all about ‘professionalism, flexibility and creativity’.”

OBITUARY

Simon Campbell-Whyte Steve Hone, CEO & co-founder, Data Centre Alliance looks back on the life of Simon Campbell-Whyte (1962 – 2015)

t is with deepest regret that I have to inform you that Simon Campbell-Whyte, Executive Director and Co-Founder of the Data Centre Alliance (DCA) is no longer with us. Following a short but valiant fight against cancer he passed away peacefully in his sleep and our thoughts and best wishes go out to his wife Lynn and his family.

After 20 years both as business partners and close friends I still can’t come to terms with the knowledge that he has gone. Over the past 4 years we have worked tirelessly together on building the DCA. Simon’s passion, vision and enthusiasm was infectious with all who met or worked with him. The contribution Simon played has ensured that the data centre industry is stronger today than it has ever been, which something I know Simon was very proud of. The DCA has grown massively in the past few years making it now the largest and most influential data centre industry association in Europe. We have received hundreds of calls, messages and emails offering condolences together with overwhelming support for the work the DCA is doing, this support has come in from members not just in Europe but from all round the world. It is this strong support network made up of visionary likeminded business leaders which binds the DCA and the Industry together. There is however still so much to do and although we have lost a valued team member and close personal friend the DCA will continue to support its members moving forward with only the best interests of the industry at its core. A charitable donation to Cancer Research UK has been set up in Simon’s memory in the hope that further research will help others in the future using this link - https://www.justgiving.com/SimonCampbell-Whyte/

The Pan European, EU Commission backed Data Centre Alliance (DCA) Team all together in June 2015

28 DATAcentreMANAGEMENT WINTER 2015

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FIRE PREVENTION

Future PERFECT? David Nyberg, 3M looks at the future of fire protection in data centres

ver the past couple of decades, fire protection in data centres has evolved considerably, particularly in terms of effectiveness and safety. For anyone not already fully up-to-speed of what is available right now, this article will discuss the impact of regulatory activity and other factors that could affect choices both now and in the future. When ozone-depleting halon systems were phased out in the early Nineties, they were often replaced by a first generation of ‘clean agent’ systems, primarily based on hydrofluorocarbon (HFC) chemical compounds. These provided fast and efficient fire suppression, but even back then there were concerns over the impact from their high Global Warming Potential. Subsequent increased concerns over climate change and regulatory limitations around the use of HFCs has put a question mark around their future in fire suppression. For instance, in March 2014, the European Parliament voted to support a European Commission proposal to cut the use of HFCs to 79 per cent below average 2009-2012 levels by 2030. Now law, this has direct impact on the use of HFCs in fire suppression systems, since they have some of the highest global warming potentials (GWPs) relative to other sectors. Water-based options, which do have a good environmental profile, were an alternative to halon systems. However, it is not uncommon for the damage to the electronics from the discharge of water in the room to be far greater than the damage from the fire itself. For instance, in Class A or C hazard incidents - namely a smoky fire - by the time water is released, the room is going to be filled with smoke, which is acidic and will cause damage to equipment. Furthermore,

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heat generated from the fire can melt some equipment even at a distance. When the fire team arrives, its priorities are to: one, evacuate the building; two, locate the source of the fire; three, assure the fire is extinguished; then four, find and turn off the water source. That could easily be half an hour or longer, by which time the water is all through the data centre and maybe spreading beyond. As a non-water based solution that was effective as halon, inert gas systems – usually mixtures of argon and nitrogen – were introduced. These have comparatively minimal impact on the environment and extinguish fires rapidly without damaging equipment. However, they rely on a significant agent concentration in the room to effectively suffocate the fire by displacing the oxygen from the space where the fire occurs. Venting to relieve pressure is required to prevent structural damage when a significant volume of inert gas flows into the room at a very high rate. Inert gas-based systems also usually have a larger space requirement for cylinders compared to other fire protection systems. The sustainable breakthrough The breakthrough came in 2003 with the introduction of a perfluoroketone. This clean agent provides high performance – as good as halon - without being subject to existing nor anticipated phase down regulatory activity. For instance, Novec Fire Protection Fluid 1230 by 3M has zero ozonedepletion potential, an atmospheric lifetime of just five days and a global warming potential of less than one. This alternative is particularly suited for electronics applications where an electrically non-conductive fire suppression agent is essential, so electronics do not need to be powered down during discharge. No residue means no clean-up. Furthermore, discharge is within 10 seconds, fire extinguishment within 30 seconds and the volume of agent discharged into the room is much lower than inert gases, alleviating the need for venting. Fire suppression equipment manufacturers continue to innovate with Novec Fire Protection Fluid: for instance, perfluoroketones are now used in systems up to 725 psi. This means fewer, larger cylinders and the agent flows distances comparable to inert gas systems, resulting in flexibility with cylinder placement and space savings. The evolution of perfluoroketone-based systems is an example of how fire protection science continues to evolve. We continue to look at ways that science can be used to continue to improve this critical application. Looking back, the environmental sustainability, efficiency, cost effectiveness and safety of fire suppression systems has come a long way in recent years.

3M™ Novec™ 1230 Fire Protection Fluid.

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FIRE PREVENTION

Keeping business flowing: protecting PEOPLE AND DATA FROM FIRE Stefano Valdrighi, director global business development, Siemens Building Technologies, tells DCM about the latest developments in fire prevention technology

oday, 35 million servers worldwide are processing an ever increasing quantity of data. From power plants, airports and large manufacturing facilities to the high rise building that houses the activities of a myriad of different businesses; data is crucial to their day to day operation. However, about 6% of infrastructure failures in data centres are related to fire. Business continuity and disaster recovery plans therefore often originate from a corporate data centre position since an incident here has such far-reaching consequences. Central to this is the provision of effective safety and security. In a data centre context, security is primarily focused on people and protection of the integrity and privacy of data. However, physical security measures are also crucial, as is fire safety, if that data is to be protected from both external and internal threats. The prime concern in protecting data is ensuring business continuity and providing a robust disaster recovery plan which will enable a quick and efficient return to normal operations in the event of an incident. Companies rely on their information systems to run their operations. If a system becomes unavailable, company operations may be impaired or stop completely, bringing business to a standstill. According to latest researches and studies the average loss of a data centre due to downtime is approximately $ 7,300 per minute or $ 610,000 for one downtime event. It is therefore necessary to provide a reliable infrastructure for data centre operations in order to minimize any chance of disruption. Information

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security is also a concern, and for this reason a data centre has to offer a secure environment which minimizes the chances of a security breach. Perfect system interaction The most important objective in a data centre is maximum availability (99.995% per year). Simply put, the central task of a fire safety system is to keep the business functioning, even in the event of a fire. Early detection plays an integral part since the earlier a fire can be detected, the earlier the operators can be notified of the event and the earlier the required technical and organizational measures can be initiated. Furthermore, analyses show that a major cause of fire safety failure is the interface between detection, alarming, control and extinguishing. For this reason, the different elements of a system need to effectively integrate and communicate to optimize performance. Early and reliable detection is crucial Data centres provide their own specific challenges in fire safety terms. Heavy power loads or a defective component in data centre equipment can quickly lead to overheating or a short circuit. A typical fire will start slowly with a long period of overheating and smoldering before erupting into flames. To detect overheating and avoid the onset of flames, very early smoke detection is required. If smoke is significantly diluted by high ventilation - a characteristic of data centre environments

FIRE PREVENTION

the risk of business interruptions following a fire extinguishing system discharge.

where high air flows are used to cool the servers - aspirating smoke detection (ASD) will provide the earliest possible warning, even when the smoke is barely discernible to people. Air samples are continuously taken at the danger spots, usually in the circular airflow as well as among the server racks, and carried to the sampling device. As soon as smoke particles are detected by the air sampler, a pre-alarm or an alarm is triggered, depending on the smoke concentration. The response characteristic is determined according to the application. Sensitivity ranges from normal to high, allowing even a minimal smoke concentration to be identified unequivocally at an early stage. This saves valuable time needed to clarify the cause and take countermeasures, such as cooling system deactivation, gentle shut-down, data export and selective shut-down. Shutting down equipment at the earliest indication of fire will stop even corrosive combustion gases from developing further. In a “gentle” shutdown, intelligent server management is activated to divert valuable data to neighboring server racks. This can only be achieved by combining an appropriate software/hardware environment with the earliest possible fire detection. The final shutdown of power only takes place when the transfer of data is complete. If such a “gentle” shutdown is considered too risky, an alternative method – aspirating smoke detection with verification by point-type detectors – may be used. In this system, the cooling system is shut down after pre-alarm while the point-type detectors verify the presence of combustion and trigger the extinguishing system. ASD systems are available which are based on a dual wavelength technology to verify that particles aspirated in very low concentrations

actually are smoke from a fire. Full integration of the device into the fire safety or management system ensures the safest operation possible because all the ASD warnings and possible maintenance messages are available at the management level so corrective measures can be taken. Efficient, safe and quiet extinguishing to prevent collateral damage to HDDs (Hard Disk Drives) and irreplaceable data The most important factor when designing an extinguishing system in a data centre environment is to make sure that the chosen agent extinguishes the fire without harming sensitive electronic equipment. For this reason, water should be avoided at all times. Furthermore, the agent must be environmentally friendly, safe for people working in the protected area, and not harm the HDDs in operation. Both clean agent and inert gas systems can be excellent and reliable systems if they are properly designed and commissioned. Even though dry extinguishing systems are the best choice to protect data centres, the latest technological findings show that in very rare cases computers and HDDs can face problems after the extinguishing process has been triggered. These problems may range from automatic shutdown of an HDD with no damage after restart to more severe disturbances. It was found that the main cause of these problems was the high noise level caused by the discharge of the agent during the extinguishing process. To answer this challenge, Silent Extinguishing Technology is now available to ensure quiet and safe extinguishing in data centres and server rooms. This technology reliably protects IT operations and minimizes

Even though dry extinguishing systems are the best choice to protect data centres, the latest technological findings show that in very rare cases computers and HDDs can face problems after the extinguishing process has been triggered. These problems may range from automatic shutdown of an HDD with no damage after restart to more severe disturbances.

Integrated solutions Electronic security and safety solutions can help protect a data centre and in doing so protect an organization’s application availability, its confidentiality, its integrity and, ultimately, its ability to function. Integration of security and safety measures is one of the prime methods of enhancing business continuity through protection of businesscritical data. Central management of operational systems provides a more efficient and dynamic use of resources, focusing them when and where they are needed. Fire safety and security can be integrated through danger management stations. This allows for centralized supervision and alarm handling from a number of different sources, including fire detection, video surveillance, access control and intrusion detection. The benefits of integrating fire safety and security are numerous: video surveillance allows the danger zone to be viewed immediately, offering a visual means of verifying and assessing the situation; integrated access control provides monitoring of escape routes and the means to quickly open or close doors, an important part of the evacuation process; integrated intrusion detection means that data and electronic equipment are protected not only from the threat of fire but also against unobserved theft or sabotage. All of this through a single, centralized station which guides personnel through the step-bystep processes to be followed in the event of an incident. This integrated view of what is happening not only helps to resolve an incident but also provides the capability to learn from incidents which is crucial in enabling process adaptation in the very dynamic risk landscapes which characterize today’s business environments. Although safety and security are not a direct part of IT operations, they definitely help to ensure the business continuity environment of a data centre. Integration through a single vendor To ensure the highest possible safety and security, it is important to control the interfaces and use the latest scientific findings for the best solution. Systems with real interoperability from a single source are therefore the preferable option in such a mission critical environment as a data centre, requiring a partner with competence not only in the detection and extinguishing technologies but in the interoperability processes themselves.

WINTER 2015 DATAcentreMANAGEMENT 33

MANAGEMENT

London CALLING DCM visited City Lifeline and found a company that is planning for a long and successful future

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hoosing a data centre provider or co-location partner is always a tricky decision. It’s usually a combination of price, location, connectivity, security and reliability for the client and any data centre provider worth their salt has to get all of these things right (plus a few more) in order to secure and retain business. City Lifeline is a single-site, selfcontained data centre operating from 28,000 sqft of central London space to the highest standards of security and reliability. All major systems are duplicated, so that any maintenance work or fault does not affect operation of critical colocated customer equipment. There are dual 11,000 volt internal electrical substations in the data centre, fed from diverse 132,000 volt external main substations, and quad diesel generators. Only 100% green electricity and biodiesel is used. The facility is security manned, patrolled and controlled 24 hours a day, every day of the year.

Sophisticated monitoring systems continuously check the data centre environment and the health of the electrical, cooling, fire, security and communications systems. The company is also the second longest established data centre provider in London, and being privately owns means that it can grow at its own pace and not be beholden to venture capital or investors demanding quick growth and profits. As Roger Keenen, the company’s MD says, this means that City Lifeline is here for the long term. “We were founded in 1986 and are situated just outside the City of London’s ‘ring of steel’. We initially had a lot of business from the telco’s and dealt mainly with the voice market, but as voice disappeared we still had the connectivity to become a premium data centre provider.” The company’s latest investment is a new data hall called the Shoreditch data hall. The new development brings a boost to data centre space in central London as well as increasing the

efficiency of City Lifeline operations. The aim was to create a data hall that has resilience and reliability at the core of its construction. This is exactly why all of the cooling systems are DX (direct expansion), which will help ensure that the small amount of space available is always used to its highest potential. The power comes from a new 11,000 volt supply, which will have enough capacity to be used when expansion to a second data hall takes place. Roger Keenan, commenting on the new launch said: “The reason for opening a new data hall is to meet demand. City Lifeline has plenty of space to expand on its existing site and this is the first phase of a much larger expansion in progress to meet and succeed the requirements of our customers. The new Shoreditch data hall will enable the need for highly connected central London colocation for the next year or so, until the next phase is ready. The new space is similar to our current base that is presently made up of both communications and cloud firms. City Lifeline also has planning permission for an extension at the rear of Shoreditch data hall should high demand dictate that more space is required. Data centre location is a crucial factor when considering a colocation of your data. With now two data halls based in heart of London, we are confident we can provide secure and efficient colocation to a diverse range of clients.” There will be up to 380 racks available in the new hall, with over 300 already sold, showing that the planned expansion will definitely be needed. Roger concluded, “We won’t be going to VC’s for funding and can afford to roll out new halls in stages. We are looking for steady growth and won’t be going bust any time soon. We are planning for seven years into the future, and whilst a lot can happen in that time, we are confident that we will be there.”

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CLOUD

Managing CLOUD RISK Nigel Moulton, EMEA CTO at VCE tells DCM about managing the risks of cloud collaboration in business today

artner predicts that cloud office systems will account for 33 per cent of the overall office market by 20171. This is a big step considering a few years ago collaboration in businesses typically involved emails, phone calls, and perhaps a few instant messages (IM) exchanged within the company. However, nowadays the arrival of cloud computing and all the remunerations that come with it have shaped the path for collaborative cloud-based services, which is reforming how businesses work over the internet. Many collaborative services offer a specific business need, such as social networking, productivity apps, storage, or good old fashioned email. However, whilst collaborative cloud-based services offer a whole range of benefits to businesses of all sizes, they also can pose a number of risks if not appropriately integrated into the corporate sphere. When using the messaging and conference call applications within the cloud, users need to be aware that the same rules associated with data privacy should also apply to this. Companies need to ensure that the “data” transferred over these systems cannot be captured by someone trying to maliciously record the call or video, and that there is an audit trail on how this messaging is done within these interactive sessions, so it cannot be detained by unwanted users. Even if employees are exchanging corporate messages privately, organisations need to make sure that there is a higher degree of security around the confidentiality of that data. This is simply because it could be severely compromising in a situation where cybercriminals hack into a corporate collaboration system and start to make private company details public. This has been seen already in the infamous phone hackings of company voicemails, so it is imperative that organisations ensure there are appropriate security measures in place which are resilient, as well as a Service Level Agreements (SLA) which will provide a high degree of compensation if the systems are breached and the company is compromised. The big question companies need to ask

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themselves is will the in-house IT department do a superior job at protecting the corporate collaboration system, or is this a responsibility which you place offsite with a cloud provider. Nowadays, SMEs in particular are taking the view that this task is best managed off premise with a provider which they trust and pay to manage their cloud collaboration systems for them. This approach has many benefits providing the company forms a relationship with a trustworthy vendor. It is imperative that before handing over the responsibility of managing and storing company data, organisations check the track record of their cloud provider and ensure that there have been no former breaches of confidentially. It is also wise for companies to try and understand the technology the provider utilises in its own data centres, and the tools they use to make the service more secure. One of the key examples of this is to check if the sessions that run between the organisations and the service provider are encrypted. This means that the data, such as

One of the specific areas of concern to be addressed is the mobility of data and how to capitalise on the benefits while securing the company.

voice messages, are encrypted within a VPN (Virtual Private Network) and the resulting file that is used to record the call is also encrypted and can only be played back by authorised users. Another risk which has emerged into the ever-connected world of business is Bring Your Own Device (BYOD). By enabling a BYOD program, enterprises permit employees access to corporate resources from anywhere in the world, however, securing these devices and supporting different mobile platforms can create complex issues for IT departments. Companies need to lay down careful policies on the security required, how this data should be handled and how employees are expected to behave – including security awareness of the dangers of insecure networks and oversharing in social networks. One of the specific areas of concern to be addressed is the mobility of data and how to capitalise on the benefits while securing the company. Firstly, security policies must be revised to reflect the changes in working practices. It's no longer possible for IT departments to defend the traditional network perimeter. Instead, they must apply a security 'wrapper' around every employee - so that they are protected wherever they work and whatever device they use. As well as a focus on technology, organisations need to better educate their employees. It’s essential that employers understand the risks involved with using mobile devices and communicate this effectively with employees. They also need to put in place robust security processes to reduce the risk of any data breaches or leaks occurring. This means deploying anti-malware apps, controlling the applications that employees have access to, and also being able to block access to, and where necessary, erase sensitive data stored on a lost device. The relatively recent purchase of AirWatch by VMWare shows how enterprise software vendors are adding additional functionality to compliment the services already offered by the mobile device operating systems, and in this way providing additional levels of control and security into mobile devices. 1. www.gartner.com/newsroom/id/2514915

IOT

Why digital identity is the key to truly SMART CITIES Lasse Andresen, CTO, Forgerock (right) tells DCM that the IoT is changing the way that people are living their lives and will also change IT

here’s no doubt the rise of the internet of things (IoT) is fundamentally changing the way we interact with the world around us. From smartphones and tablets to fridges and lightbulbs, nearly every kind of device now boasts some form of online connectivity designed to make our lives easier and more efficient. However, while the IoT revolution has accelerated rapidly in recent years, it is limited by one significant flaw: IoT devices generally cannot communicate with one another.

Identity crisis This inability to communicate stems from the lack of digital identities amongst these devices. As people, our identity is what makes us unique and tells others who we are. Without it we’d be just a number, indistinguishable from those around us. The same concept applies to connected devices, and with 4.9 billion currently part of the IoT (rising to 25 billion by 2025), there are a lot of devices suffering from an identity crisis at the moment. However, this is changing. The rise of digital identity management technology means that many of these devices can now be assigned their own identities across the internet of things ecosystem. They can securely recognize and interact with other digital identities, establishing known digital relationships between users, between users and connected things, and between things themselves. As a result of this newfound communication, the utility of internetconnected devices in homes, offices, and even cities is greatly enhanced.

Protecting the smart city of tomorrow Envision a city where public services are connected together through identity, including disaster early warning systems. What if a hurricane is approaching? Now, the early warning system kicks in, sending an encrypted message to the city’s emergency response crews, alerting them to the danger. The identity of the warning system is quickly authenticated, and pre-approved emergency plans are put into action. Within a few minutes of the initial warning signal, bridges and at-risk public transport systems can be automatically closed, and fire crews dispatched to evacuate any unsafe buildings quickly and efficiently. The fire crews themselves also have unique identities so their movement can be traced through the city, and fire engines sent to underserved areas via traffic-efficient routes. Traffic lights automatically change as the fire engines approach, to ensure road congestion is minimised, while each firefighter’s individual digital identity verifies they are legitimate when they reach the scene. As this example demonstrates, the introduction of digital identity at each stage of an emergency response can rapidly transform a highly complex operation with many moving parts into a fast, automated response, potentially saving many lives. Without identities tied to each of the devices and systems involved, this simply wouldn’t be possible. Powering the smart city of tomorrow Protecting us from the unpredictable aside, digital identity can also be used to make the more mundane aspects of life quicker and

However, while the IoT revolution has accelerated rapidly in recent years, it is limited by one significant flaw: IoT devices generally cannot communicate with one another.

easier. Travel and logistics are two of the areas most likely to benefit from an identity-led approach. For instance, smart traffic systems can collect real-time data about traffic volume, speed, and hazards. These systems can then utilise responsive signage to guide commuters towards less congested routes, or even text specific commuters (via their digital identities) to warn of delays on their usual route and suggest alternatives. The data collected through this kind of activity can also help city planners with future road and transit development, by pinpointing exactly where the pinch points are in the current systems. Elsewhere, smart parking systems can alert drivers to free spaces as soon as their car enters the vicinity, eliminating the need to drive around looking. Once parked, the smart system can monitor the duration of the stay using the car’s GPS, capping the parking charge once the car begins moving again and automatically charging the customer via a preregistered account. Meanwhile, the city can monitor overall parking demand across the city and respond with demand-based pricing, reducing pollution and traffic while optimising revenues. Identity is the key These are just a few examples of how identity will play a pivotal role in the smart cities of tomorrow. From utilities to services and everything in between, the ability of smart devices to connect and communicate with one another will greatly improve the quality of civic services and city planning. For citizens, this means efficient, new services that improve almost every aspect of urban life, all powered by identity and the internet of things.

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CASE STUDY

Invisible FUTURE? Caroline Bullock, content director at Nutanix asks, why more companies are setting their sights on an invisible data centre?

hen Italian bank, Credito Valtellinese admits to forgetting the very existence of the Nutanix technology which powers the organisation’s IT infrastructure, it is a rare example of a positive oversight. Because in a similar vein to a good waiter, IT infrastructure that is doing its job, shouldn’t really be noticed at all, instead ticking over seamlessly in the background, only to command attention when there is some kind of disruption to the operation. It’s the reason why identifying the most transformative, robust and resilient solutions which can keep critical systems running 24/7 has become the Holy Grail for many businesses in the never ending quest to optimise efficiencies. And this scrutiny and drive is heralding a new era for the data centre environment - one that is on the cusp of entirely invisible infrastructure. Leading the charge is San Francisco-based Nutanix, the pioneer of converged infrastructure, whose raison d’etre has been to transform the entire make up of IT infrastructure by driving down cost and complexity and rethinking the approach to storage and compute for a virtualised world. Within a short space of time, this radical approach has become the go-to solution for over 1,700 of multi-sector enterprises from banks, airlines and social housing organisations to one of the world’s largest privately-owned health clubs. All are reaping the benefits of a configurable and scalable network which can evolve seamlessly with business needs, shape new business models

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and exploit new ways of working. In driving this architectural approach, known as web-scale IT, Nutanix took the lead from the global cloud services of Google, Amazon and Facebook, who in their mission to deliver IT services to millions, realised they would have to devise their own software-defined hugely scalable and resilient IT infrastructure rather than relying on costlier and restrictive proprietary solutions and custom hardware. As the benefits of the new approach became more commonly known, Nutanix soon emerged as the go-to solution equipped to bring web-scale IT to the masses and fuel the more mainstream adoption with affordable and tailored packaged solution to fit business requirements. It’s a process which began with the launch of the flagship hyperconvergence software-centric architecture six year ago. By integrating compute and storage into one commodity hardware box, this marked the first major milestone on the journey to data centre invisibility with the server hidden for the first time and the three tier SAN architecture eliminated. A core differentiator established from the outset, and which remains a major draw, is the ability to transform the usually complex process of network expansion through an easy to use, scalable ‘pay as you grow’ model. Here, the infrastructure’s capacity and performance can be enhanced simply by adding additional computing nodes with no need to replace or upgrade existing servers, and all in a matter of minutes, as opposed to the days that traditional architecture would take. And now things are moving up a gear as

Nutanix Xtreme is powering a new era in an organisation with a heritage dating back to 1908, as it transitions from a focus on a physical branch environment to a more mobile way of both banking and working as customers gain virtual access to the bank’s services while staff work on the move via notebook and virtual desktop solution.

virtualisation joins the server in becoming invisible with the launch of the Nutanix Xtreme Computing Platform which raises the IT enterprise bar even further. Comprising two stand out solutions Nutanix Prism and Nutanix Acropolis, the software integrates virtualisation into the platform to simplify operations and deployment. And it represents an industry first through the flexibility afforded to the IT professionals who are empowered to making the infrastructure decisions based on the requirement of the application, be it a traditional or emerging hypervisor. Indeed, this drive for an ever more versatile solution to negate the restrictions that come with a proprietary vendor extends even further, exacerbating multi-hypervisor adoption which flourishes in a network where complexity is reduced, as competing solutions drive a greater commoditisation in this market. Indeed, for the diverse range of operating environments now embracing Nutanix solutions, enhanced agility is one of the defining characteristics not only leading to significant cost savings and efficiencies, but also driving new service delivery and ways of working as a result. It’s a case in point at Sondrio-based Credito Valtellinese where Nutanix has brought virtualisation to the bank’s data centres in Sondrio and Milan to better respond to ccomplex processes such as acquisitions that have demanded an ever more agile approach to delivery. Nutanix Xtreme is powering a new era in an organisation with a heritage dating back to 1908, as it transitions from a focus on a physical branch environment to a more mobile way of both banking and working as customers gain virtual access to the bank’s services while staff work on the move via notebook and virtual desktop solution. A different domain, but the impact is proving to be just as transformative at health club Fitness First where six figure cost savings are on the cards having replaced the complex and expansive legacy data environment with a hybrid cloud using Nutanix converged infrastructure. The move has seen the previous several hundred servers culled to just two Nutanix hyper converged storage and server racks saving cost and space and leading to far greater flexibility. The result is a business that is far better placed to respond to the level of IT demands which have escalated in line with business growth, beginning with the one club in London in 1993 to a business which now has 1 million members and 370 clubs in 16 countries. An invisible future has never been so clear.

MANAGEMENT

Small STEPS DCM spoke with Schneider Electric‘s Tanuja Randery, UK and Ireland president (below), and Kevin Brown, vice president, global data centre strategy and technology about the rise of the micro data centre

ithin the data centre industry, we constantly need to assess where the landscape is going, and what we see happening in terms of the evolution of technology and its usage. All of this affects the way things are interconnected. “At Schneider, we’re not just interested in collecting and processing data, we are very much about what do you do to act on the information,” explains Tanuja Randery, UK and Ireland President. Tanuja continues. “Within utilities, for example, a lot of data is being generated at a granular level and as you look at all of the information that’s sitting out there it suddenly becomes clear that data centres have been too far removed from the action. We need to switch it around so that we can process information on the edge and covert it into action.”

Schneider has launched a new global brand strategy, called Life Is On, which comes at a critical point of transition for the industry, and is fuelled by the company’s Operational Intelligence approach to IoT. The approach will transform how people and organisations consume energy, better automate industrial processes, and increase the quality of business decisions, while improving their lives. Tanuja continues: “The management of data and looking at the patterns of usage is the key to us being able to consume less energy. We all have a responsibility and by putting management systems in place at the data centre, buildings, and asset level, we can create a way of visualising the information. This will give our leaders a chance to do something with that data because they can see it and act on it. “Going back to basics, the data centres we see around us are not operating at the most effective levels in terms of usage of capacity and energy, and managing their system. There’s a lot that we need to do today before we rush off and do new things for the future.” The Life Is On brand strategy leverages Schneider Electric’s expertise in the operational technology that controls our society’s most important processes and connects it to the information technology that we rely on to simplify our lives and make better decisions. This approach relies on optimised automation and control, advanced remote management, predictive maintenance, enabling managed services, advanced analytics and generation of actionable information to drive informed decisionmaking in our homes, manufacturing facilities, data centres, buildings and cities. Kevin Brown, Vice President, Global Data Centre Strategy and Technology, explained: “The real advantage for a

company like us is because its on an IT network it can also be accessed so we can do something with it that we couldn’t do in the past. “Take typical preventative maintenance as an example. In the future, because the data will be readily available to us, we’ll be able to remotely analyse the device, find out what’s wrong with it and what parts it needs, all before we’ve even got there.” Micro data centres Schneider Electric’s introduction of a micro data centre solution portfolio for the UK and Ireland enables data processing to be brought nearer to the point of M2M data production in IoT and other highly automated applications. Kevin clarifies: “Although we are in the early stages, micro data centres are exciting because they are the point of a trend where data centres are going to be designed to be application-specific and, as a result, they will be much more responsible with regard to the use of energy.” Schneider Electric’s micro data centre physical infrastructure solutions include the enclosure, uninterruptible power supply (UPS), power distribution, management software (DCIM), environmental monitoring, cooling and security – all tested, assembled, packaged and then shipped together in a factory environment. The micro data centre solutions portfolio includes SmartBunker SX, traditional for IT rooms, CX, optimised for office environments, FX, robust for any environment and SmartShelter, a multirack, ruggedised for any environment. “This emerging trend towards micro data centres is our way of trying to lead the industry,” said Kevin. “In this instance it becomes application specific. We are matching the physical infrastructure to the behaviour so that everything becomes much more effective and saves energy as a result.”

WINTER 2015 DATAcentreMANAGEMENT 39

THE LAST WORD

Q&A COLIN HYDE Director of ARC:MC

Colin’s experience ranges from commercial architecture to strategic briefs, complete space planning and interior design services. Colin’s expertise lies in effective design and programme management. Colin is frequently praised for his ability to bring all consultants together on a project focused on common goals and financial objectives.

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How did you become involved in the IT industry? Through the various practices I have worked with I have been involved in many aspects of project delivery and am always interested in cutting edge technology and innovative design, not just the hardware and software but the physical building types . Over the years, I have been fortunate to have worked with many of the industry’s visionaries, not just in IT, but in structure and engineering. So working with technology clients and in particular data centres was an obvious workflow sector to establish my business. Who has been the biggest influence on your career? I think this revolves around what stage you are at in your career. I remember a particular tutor at university, Andrew Plunkett, encouraged me to always be less pragmatic and think and look outside the box for design innovation. Starting out in business I followed an individual, Mike Seiersen, to three different architectural practices and it was him who taught me so much about the business holistically. One of those aspects was the ability to collaborate successfully with the client and your fellow professionals. Currently it’s my peers in the construction industry and the influence of new techniques such as the development of BIM and Lean Construction. You never stop learning. What is the biggest issue in the data centre at the moment? As a sector it has to be flexibility, in response to project delivery not just of the built environment but also to accommodate the ever changing face of IT innovation and limiting the clients’ financial exposure. As architects another challenge we face is coping with the clients’ demands for available space globally. The need for appropriate scalable buildings that encompass modularity, sustainability, reliability and resilience is increasing. How do you think the DC industry has changed over the last 10 years? We have seen client requirements change from large structured shell environments to something much more flexible and adaptable. We have become much more adept at accommodating change whilst minimising cost and

programme. Contractors and consultants are now chosen for their inherent knowledge of the unique processes involved, not just their respective disciplines. Client briefs are much more defined and endeavour to future proof their facilities against all the odds. We have seen a dramatic reduction in the size of IT equipment, which would tend to indicate smaller facilities but this has to be balanced with the increased demand not just in the quantum of IT but in power, cooling, infrastructure and resilience. What are the best/worst things about your job? The best thing about my job is I am doing something I love and in the process working alongside some great people, clients, fellow professionals and work colleagues and establishing long term relationships in and out of work. I have always wanted to be involved in all aspects of construction….. it must have been all those formative years of painting on walls , sketch pads, and Lego! The worst thing can be all the associated administrative duties associated with running a business but I have learnt to put trust in others - to let go, delegate and move on. What advice would you give to someone starting out in the industry? As I alluded to earlier I put great store in people skills and I believe this is often overlooked at college and university. So I would ask that the individual get involved, ask the smart and the stupid questions, listen to your peers and appreciate the issue from all sides before making an informed decision. You have to be prepared to change the way you think, the way you produce information and ultimately the way in which you deliver. Where would you like to live? I am fortunate to live where I always wanted to, in a rural location in Ireland. What sports team do you support? Locally I support Maguiresbridge GAA, as my three sons play. What is your desert island disc? If I had to choose an artist it would probably be Irish singer/songwriter Paul Brady. What is your ideal holiday? I prefer to holiday in Ireland in a nice hotel with great food, great drink and great craic!

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