DCJ Nov2012

Volume 25 | November 2012
The Data Center Industry:
Beyond
25TH PRINT EDITION
2012 and
Resuscitating the Legacy Data Center
Next Generation Optical Fiber Connectivity Solutions for the Mission Critical Data Center
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2012, Server Technology, Inc.
14 DATA CENTER FACILITY VENDOR PERSPECTIVES ON THE INDUSTRY
FEATURE
4 DATA CENTER INDUSTRY: 2012 AND BEYOND
The approaching end of another calendar year offers a good opportunity to look back at the data center industry in 2012 and look forward to what might be ahead in 2013. Overall, many major themes of this past year will continue into next year and, possibly, beyond. Rising demand for IT services, growing concern over energy prices and consumption, and a general do more with less approach are likely to continue unabated.
by Jeffrey R Clark, Ph.D.
by Jeffrey R Clark, Ph.D
The data center market is at the center of a number of different trends and forces that raise a number of opportunities, as well as concerns. A good way to get a perspective on current and possibly future directions is to go to the vendors at the center of the market. To this end, The Data Center Journal asked two vendorsSchneider Electric and Deerns Americato provide their takes on whats driving the industry and what the future looks like for data center facilities.
23 NEXT GENERATION OPTICAL FIBER CONNECTIVITY SOLUTIONS FOR THE MISSION CRITICAL DATA CENTER
by Bill Charuk
DESIGN CORNER
18 RESUSCITATING THE LEGACY DATA CENTER
by Eric Holzworth
As todays evolving data centers confront bandwidth capacity challenges, the migration from 10 gigabits per second (Gb/s)to 40 and 100 Gb/s, and higher density and cloud computing requirements , choosing the correct connectivity method has never been more important to meet the demands for optimum reliability, performance, scalability, cost effectiveness, and time to restoration .
ITOPS
28 DCIM AND CO-LOCATION: A ROADMAP FOR SUCCESS
by Constantin Delivanis
FACILITY CORNER
8 USING SOLAR ENERGY SYSTEMS TO OFFSET DATA CENTER ELECTRICITY CONSUMPTION
by Mark Crowdis
As data centers continue to face growing volumes of information to process and store, a series of surveys is highlighting what has become a serious problem--data center capacity is strained and struggling to meet ongoing demands.
If you have a data center, one way to reduce grid electricity consumption is to install a solar photovoltaic (PV) system on the facility. These systems utilize sunlight to generate electricity, which can then be used to power your data center. Solar PV costs have fallen over the past decade, making them cost-competitive solutions in more and more areas.
ITCORNER
20 KEEPING DATA IN-HOUSE: LEVERAGING THE POWER OF STORAGE AUTOMATION
by Brent Rhymes
Co-location is nothing new. A highly useful alternative to do-it-yourself, its a viable option for any company looking to build out the data center. In this challenging economic environment, there is more pressure than ever to cut costs. As companies explore new ways to keep expenses in check, many feel it doesnt make sense to incur additional capital investments to expand in-house data centers. Enter the co-location or Co-Lo, or a bit more broadly, the Multi-Tenant Data Center. Currently, its estimated there are more than 1,000 co-location data centers in the United States alone.
ITBUSINESS
31 NETWORK INFRASTRUCTURE CABLING PURCHASING TRENDS SHAPING TOMORROWS DATA CENTERS
by Bob Eskew
12 IMPROVING ENERGY EFFICIENCY IN DATA CAMPUSES

by By Michelle Berliner
The data center market has been considered, in many areas, to be a bright spot in the commercial real estate industry as more and more properties are being converted to accommodate data centers. While this trend is filling the need for more mission-critical facilities, it also poses a challenge from a sustainability perspective because these facilities consume a large amount of energy.
Enterprise storage needs are continuing to grow with no slowdown in sight. With data representing the lifeline of a company, IT administrators are looking to the cloud as a means for storing, accessing and sharing data. IDC research predicts that by 2015, public storage cloud services will grow by more than 25 percent. While there is no doubt that these clouds can be useful for certain applications, not all provide the right availability, performance and protection for an enterprises critical business data. With
Structured cabling network infrastructures are playing a more prominent role than ever before in the reliability and operation of data centers. As a result, the network infrastructure cabling purchases made today will have an impact on data centers for years to come. Keep reading to learn about the trends that are driving todays network infrastructure purchases.
All rights reserved. No portion of DATA CENTER Journal may be reproduced without written permission from the Executive Editor. The management of DATA CENTER Journal is not responsible for opinions expressed by its writers or editors. We assume that all rights in communications sent to our editorial staff are unconditionally assigned for publication. All submissions are subject to unrestricted right to edit and/or to comment editorially.
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THE DATA CENTER JOURNAL
www.datacenterjournal.com
VENDOR INDEX
Universal Electric ....................................... Inside Front www.starlinepower.com Server Tech ............................................................. pg 1 www.servertech.com Cable System ........................................................... pg 5 www.cablesys.com/pnp PDU Cables ............................................................... pg 7 www.pducables.com DataAire ..................................................................... pg 9 www.dataaire.com Eaton ....................................................................... pg 11 www.switchon.eaton.com/datacenterjournal11 Corning ..................................................................... pg 13 www.offers.corning.com/1-EDGESolutions Belden ...................................................................... pg 15 www.belden.com System Sensor ....................................................... pg 17 www.systemsensor.com/faast AVTECH ..................................................................... pg 21 www.avtech.com Emerson ................................................................... pg 22 www.emerson.com Sumitomo Electric ............................................... pg 27 www.sumitomoelectric.com Data Specialties, Inc. .......................................... pg 29 www.webuilddatacenters.com PDU Cables ............................................................ pg 30 www.pducables.com AFCOM ............................................................ Inside Back www.datacenterworld.com DCJ Expert Blogs .................................................... Back www.dcjexpertblogs.com
Thank You
25TH PRINT EDITION
n September of 2003, The Data Center Journal was born online. We began as a small, independent publication solely for the Data Center Industry. At that time there were no other publications that looked at the industry
as a holistic entity and none that looked to bring the areas of IT, Facilities and Design together. Our goal was to provide those that worked in the industry a place where data center information could be disseminated in a non-biased and educational forum. In the fall of 2006 we looked to bring that insight into the print realm and The Data Center Journal Magazine was born. It is with great pride that we present to you the 25th issue of DCJ Magazine. Over the years we have provided you information on Women in the DC Industry, Green Initiatives, Efficiency, Storage, the Cloud and Virtualization and each fall we take a look back at the year and give a Year in Review. In 2007, we started converting the magazine to a digital format, as well as keeping the traditional print. We host each magazine on the website for you to access 24/7. So, if you are new to DCJ Magazine, dont worry. You can access all issues since the spring of 2007 online. What a great resource for the industry! Since then many publications have popped up both online and in print. But over the years we have remained true to our original vision by keeping advertising to a minimum and not using our site as a forum for vendors. Our publications remain content heavy with the emphasis being on education and bettering the industry as a whole. We remain a small publication that does not have to rely on turning a big profittherefore we can continue to provide great quality content without having a conflict of interest. So, in closing we at The Data Center Journal would like to thank you for being loyal readers over the years. If you are new to DCJ; welcome! We look forward to your being a loyal reader for years to come. Sincerely,
The Data Center Journal Staff

THE DATA CENTER JOURNAL | 3
The Data Center Industry:
Beyond
he approaching end of another calendar year offers a good opportunity to look back at the data center industry in 2012 and look forward to what might be ahead in 2013. Overall, many major themes of this past year will continue into next year and, possibly, beyond. Rising demand for IT services, growing concern over energy prices and consumption, and a general do more with less approach are likely to continue unabated. The next year, however, may well see an abandonment of the idea of an economic recovery as the broader economy slides back into recession, with less-thanappealing (but not necessarily unbearable) consequences for the data center industry.
2012 and
IT GROWTH
A steady trend in 2012 has been continued growth in demand for IT services in both the consumer and enterprise segments. This growth will continue to drive greater demand for energy in the data centers that deliver these servicesan important subject of its own. A growing area of concern focused on the intersection of the consumer and enterprise segments is bring your own device, where employees use personally owned devices in their work. BYOD, as its labeled, raises a variety of issues related to security, integration with company infrastructure, ownership of data and so on. Companies will continue
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to seek both good policies and, if they adopt BYOD, good methods of integrating personal devices into the work environmentboth physical and virtual.
ENERGY CONSUMPTION
Yes, it might sound like a broken record, but energy is still one of the top concerns of data center operators, particularly with ever increasing demand for services. Energy prices are rising for a variety of reasons, ranging from turmoil in the Middle East to increasingly stringent environmental standards to inflationary pressure as a result of quantitative easing (read: money printing) from the Federal Reserve. This
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THE DATA CENTER JOURNAL |
wouldnt be so bad, however, if demand for IT services was flat and data centers increased the efficiency of their operations. Demand is increasing, however, meaning that energy costs are rising even more. And the recent New York Times article entitled Power, Pollution and the Internetwhatever inaccuracies it may havehighlights the problem. The next year promises no relief, barring some radical change in the industry or the broader economy. More consumers will want more applications and more services on their mobile (and other) devices, as will employees. Increasing reliance on the cloud over local computing will increase pressure on data centers to meet these needs. One question markat least in the U.S.however, is the matter of energy legislation, particular regarding some form of carbon taxation or efficiency regulations. For several years, the industry has been kept in limbo regarding a national carbon tax or cap-and-trade scheme (such as in the European Union), whose costs would be passed down from utilities to consumers like companies that operate data centers. Furthermore, energy efficiency regulations may impose standards that many companies now pursue voluntarily. The year 2013 may or may not provide clarity: much depends on the economic conditions. A souring economy may put a continued hold on carbon taxation and efficiency regulations.
POLITICS
Because 2012 is an election year, 2013 may see a different distribution between Republicans and Democrats in Washington (and locally). Ultimately, however partisan bickering asideits difficult to find a dimes worth of difference between candidate A and candidate B (particularly in the presidential race), so the outcome of the election probably wont make much difference to the data center industry.
their IT capabilities. It will remain a strong trend in 2013 as the word of potential savings filters into the C-suite of more companies.
IT SPENDING
IDC predicts worldwide IT spending to increase by 6% in 2012 and another 6% in 2013, compared with 7% in 2011. Different regions, needless to say, will fare differently: the U.S. will see about 4% growth in 2012, whereas China will see about 14% (which is nonetheless down from 25% in the previous year). Europe, in the midst of its fiscal crisis, will see only about 1% growth. Although a return to a recession in the U.S. and a deepening of the troubles in the E.U. will likely put a further damper on growth in those regions, IT spending will probably remain fairly stable barring any major economic event. Companies are increasingly looking to IT as a means of improving their businesses through greater efficiency, for instance. But if the European Union breaks apart (does anyone remember Soviet Russia?) or another economic crash occurs in the U.S. or elsewhere in the west, all bets are off. The high growth rate of Chinese IT spending nevertheless shows momentum downward, which may signal a change of fortunes in that region. Profligate government spending and fiat currencies are coming back to bite the west; they may do so in the east as well.
BROADER ECONOMY: UNCERTAIN

This year has produced little to evince a true economic recovery from the recession. Next year may well see a return to a recession, since nothing has been done to change the status quo: profligate government spending, and increasing taxes (whether directly or by inflation) and regulations. Media pundits fret about the so-called fiscal cliff in early 2013, when tax rates will jump and federal spending cuts will be implemented, but the safe money (no pun intended) is on some resolution that largely maintains current tax rates and spending. Whether the western world is in the midst of its own Japan-style lost decade or whether it is heading for a more serious downturn remains to be seen. The data center industry, although not immune from economic conditions, is somewhat insulated owing to growing IT demand. Nevertheless, the strain on company budgets can slow IT spending, forcing companies to do more with less. Although this isnt necessarily bad, it can be stressful, particularly on IT staff as expectations risebut hiring doesnt.
ENERGY EFFICIENCY
Virtualization has taken the status of a best practice in the data center. Companies looking to improve energy efficiency and to reduce capital and operational costs often implement virtualization as part of their efficiency strategy. Adoption will increase and techniques/software will improve, but the novelty has largely worn off for the industry as a whole. Free cooling received a boost in 2011 with ASHRAEs release of its new operating temperature and humidity guidelines for data centers; these guidelines enable use of outside air for cooling year round in most locations. Cooling remains a major area of potential cost and energy savings for data centers in 2012, and this will continue into 2013. Many large companies are implementing free-cooling strategies, and smaller companies will increasingly follow suit, particularly if economic strains increase. Whatever the case, efficiency will remain an important area of discussion and innovation for the data center industry into 2013 and beyond. 6 | THE DATA CENTER JOURNAL
BIG DATA
What it is may not be entirely clear, but it sure sounds intimidating: big data. Its a buzz phrase in the data center and IT sectors, but like the cloud some years ago, its precise meaning is a little fuzzy. (And its also nearing the peak of Gartners 2012 Emerging Technologies Hype Cycle.) What is clear is that cheap storage capacity means that maintaining huge volumes of data isnt a problem. Doing something with all that data, however, can be problematic. And with more use of IT services, the flood of information will only increase. Look for big data to be an even bigger story in 2013 as companies look for better and more efficient ways to handle the quintillions (or more) of bits flooding their networks. And maybe with the increasing focus will come increasing clarity: what exactly is meant by the term big data and what differentiates it from not-so-big data.
OUTSOURCING
Yes, its an evil wordat least in the minds of somebut outsourcing is common and will remain so. Outsourcing can be either within national bounds or beyond them (offshoring). In the data center space, it can range from an all-out approach via the cloud to halfway measures like colocation and hybrid cloud. One of the chief benefits of outsourcing in the data center marketreduced capital costsis very appealing to companies that have IT needs but not much in the way of money to spend on new projects. A pay-as-you-go approach is preferable in many such cases. The cloud has been picking up steam as more companies employ it to supplement
APPLES MAIDEN DATA CENTER AND ALTERNATIVE ENERGY

The hottest tech company today is Apple, and it revealed in 2012 that its Maiden, North Carolina, data center would implement a 100-acre solar array with a peak output of 20MW, yielding roughly 42 million kWh per year (an average of about 5MW). Although the average output is only about a tenth of the predicted power consumption of Apples data center, the company is attempting to make renewable energy a major part of its power diet. In addition, the company will also deploy hydrogen fuel cells capable of generating 4.8MW of power, with the hydrogen coming from natural gas. Apples alternative energy efforts, while admirable, still amount to a relatively small portion of its power appetite. Every little bit helps, but momentum for alternative energies continued to stall in 2012. Alternative energy companiesSolyndra possibly being the most notoriousare often recipients of government subsidies, making their business models largely unsustainable (ironically). Solar power has yet to materialize as a significant competitor to coal, and the wind industry is strug-
gling. These power sources simply cannot match coal and nuclears ability to provide abundant power on demand in the present grid, so the only forces driving their use are government subsidies, regulations that push up the price of coal and companies that wish to invest in them for their own reasons. Nuclear power, the only real current competitor to coal, is still in the PR doghouse following the Fukushima disaster in Japan. In 2013, barring a real economic recovery (which is unlikely), alternative energy probably wont see many gains. Nevertheless, this is an area of great interest, albeit indirectly, to the data center industry. The problem of providing abundant, affordable energy to a world constantly demanding more is one of the major challenges now, and it will remain so in the futurepending some unforeseen breakthrough.
completion in 2013 at a total cost of around $2 billion (whats one or two compared with a $16,000 billion debt?). Billed as a means of safeguarding national security, the facility has more of an air of an expansion of the surveillance state. But dont worry: whatever parallel with Soviet Russia or Nazi Germany comes to mind, just remember it cant possibly happen here.
CONCLUSION
Plenty is happening in the data center industry at the technical level, as companies seek to gain greater performance from their facilities. Silicon process technologies are still producing faster and smaller chips for servers, densities are increasing to pack more computing power in less space and software is under development to handle ever more massive amounts of data. Data centers are facilities that take many months, or years, to build, so trends in the industry tend to wax and wane slowly. Many of the same themes of 2012 will carry over to 2013. Energy is the largest and most universal concern for companies with data centers. The economy also is a concern, although it is moderately stable, if unimpressive, for now. n
NSA DATA CENTER

Despite the federal governments pursuit of data center consolidation (in which it has made some progress), Washington still saw fit to begin constructing a mega data center in Utah for the NSA. This 1,000,000-square-foot facility is slated for
FACILITY CORNER
Using Solar Energy Systems to Offset Data Center Electricity Consumption
BY MARK CROWDIS
There are many potential benefits to solar PV installations. Such systems can: Reduce energy costs Act as a price hedge against rising energy costs Reduce the amount of pollution-rich energy consumed from the grid Reduce carbon emissions Strengthen public relations Capitalize on under-utilized roof or ground space
IS SOLAR PV RIGHT FOR YOUR DATA CENTER?

While solar PV systems are beneficial for many facilities, some sites are not suitable for solar PV. It is important to ask the right questions before moving forward with a solar project. Generally speaking, it is best to install solar PV systems in states with net metering policies. Net metering allows end users to consume the electricity generated at the site if there is sufficient demand. If more electricity is generated than the facility can use, that electricity is fed into the electrical grid and the project owner is given a credit. That credit can be applied to electricity consumed from the grid. In other words, under net metering a customers electricity meter can spin backwards. The facility itself must have the right physical characteristics. First, there must be adequate space for a sizable solar PV system. Systems that are too small do not allow for economies of scale. Generally speaking, it is best if there is at least 100,000 square feet of available roof space, www.datacenterjournal.com
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DATA CENTER ELECTRICITY USAGE
t is widely acknowledged that data centers are large consumers of energy; in 2010, data centers accounted for about 1.3% of all electricity used worldwide, and about 2% of the electricity used in the U.S. Furthermore, their energy usage increases every year. Between 2005 to 2010, data center electricity usage increased by about 56% worldwide. In the U.S., it increased by about 36% during that timeframe. This energy usage pattern has raised questions about the future of data centers and how they relate to sustainability and pollution. Additionally, it has been estimated that energy expenditures account for THE DATA CENTER JOURNAL
12% of data center expenses. From both a public relations and economic perspective, therefore, data center owners may wish to explore ways of reducing their electricity consumption from the electric grid.
SOLAR PHOTOVOLTAIC SYSTEMS: A POSSIBLE SOLUTION?

If you have a data center, one way to reduce grid electricity consumption is to install a solar photovoltaic (PV) system on the facility. These systems utilize sunlight to generate electricity, which can then be used to power your data center. Solar PV costs have fallen over the past decade, making them cost-competitive solutions in more and more areas.
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preferably in a centralized location, or five acres of open ground space. This space cannot be significantly shaded by trees, nearby buildings, or even rooftop structures or HVAC units. For a roof-mounted solar PV system, the roof should be in good condition with a remaining lifetime of at least ten years; twenty is preferred. The roof should also have the structural strength to support the solar system and be composed of eligible materials; this excludes materials like clay tile, metal, or slate. Ideally, the surface on which the solar system is installed would be flat. It is best if the pitch of the roof does not exceed 5 for roof-mounted systems, and it is best if the pitch of the ground does not exceed 10 for ground-mounted systems. The cost structure must also be considered. Solar PV systems tend to make economic sense in areas with high electricity rates and incentives. One of the most important incentives is the 30% Federal Investment Tax Credit (ITC); this is available nationwide. Other incentives are state-based, such as sales tax exemptions, property tax exemptions, grants, and rebates. Another factor that can affect project economics is the salability of solar renewable energy credits (SRECs). SRECs represent the value of the environmental attributes associated with solar electricity. SRECs are often sold separately from the electricity generated by a solar PV system, and SREC values vary as a function of generation timeframe and location. As state budgets have tightened, some states have moved away from grants or rebates and implemented SREC-driven markets.
firm can review the equipment selection and design, a consultant can oversee the project construction, and an operation and maintenance (O&M) firm can be hired to ensure ongoing system operations. Locating, vetting, engaging, and supervising these firms does require an investment of time, of course, and should the system have unexpected operational issues, you would bear the cost of repair. A popular financing option that minimizes risk is a power purchase agreement (PPA) structure. Under a PPA structure, you do not own the solar PV system. Rather, a third party financier owns the system and sells you, the project host, the electricity generated by the solar system at a predetermined rate. This rate is often lower than the rate charged by the local utility. The financier takes on the responsibility for the system design, installation, and ongoing operations; you are only responsible for purchasing the electricity produced. The financier also takes responsibility for obtaining any incentives available, and typically passes through the benefits of the 30% tax credit and any other incentives to the site host via a lower PPA electricity rate. The financier is also responsible for the sale of any SRECs; the project host can choose to purchase these, but typically they are sold to a third party or utility.
PROCURING A SOLAR PV SYSTEM

Once you know how you want to finance your solar system, the next step is to find the right partner. Often, a solar development firm can either sell you a system directly or help you to find a financier that would own the system for you. It is important to review the background, qualifications, and experience of prospective development partners and to get proposals from several knowledgeable, reputable firms. Proposal evaluation should include more than just a comparison of the developers costs; a number of factors should be taken into account, including the experience of the developer, materials selected, the warranties and guarantees, the validity of the system size and output, the installation schedule, the subcontractor selection, and the proposed O&M. It is especially important not to presume that the proposal has presented the savings to the data center accurately; you should perform your own financial analysis on the value of the system. This analysis should be based upon
PROJECT INVESTMENT VS. RISK: FINANCING STRUCTURES

If a solar PV system makes technical and economic sense for your data center, the next question to consider is how the system will be financed. Data center owners can certainly purchase solar photovoltaic systems. Generally speaking, this approach leads to the greatest financial return, assuming that your company has tax appetite to take the 30% tax credit. It does, however, carry certain risks with it. As the system owner, you are responsible for ensuring that the system is properly designed, installed, and that it continues to operate properly. Contractors and consultants can be hired to support this work; for example, an independent engineering
the actual savings that you would enjoy, calculated by considering the electricity rate that you currently pay to an electricity utility and/or a direct access supplier. Before selecting a developer to work with, it may also be advisable to consider draft or sample contracts from the developers; some developers will have unreasonable or unduly unfavorable terms in their contracts. Once a vendor has been selected, it will be vitally important to negotiate the business terms of the contract appropriately. The wrong terms can leave you unprotected and open to liabilities; the right terms can provide significant protection and ensure that the solar installation is an asset to the data center. If you do have a direct access electricity supplier, it is extremely important to review that contract to ensure that it does not preclude you from engaging in on-site generation projects. The amount of attention required during the construction phase depends upon the type of installation. For systems that are purchased, more careful attention should be paid to the installation and system commissioning; the owner may want to consider hiring a third party firm to review the commissioning and verify proper system installation and operations. Indeed, for many firms that have little to no experience with solar PV systems, it is helpful to engage with an energy consulting firm to help provide guidance throughout the assessment and procurement process. Such a firm can verify that your site is suitable for solar, advise on the financing methods, identify reputable development partners, thoroughly evaluate proposals, negotiate advantageous contracts, and oversee construction. As data center electricity usage continues to rise and electricity prices increase, we expect more and more data centers to procure solar PV systems to both reduce their financial exposure and improve their image. n
About the Author: Mark Crowdis is the president of Reznick Think Energy, a Bethesda, Maryland-based renewable energy consulting firm that is a subsidiary of tax and accounting firm CohnReznick LLP. Elyse Rhodin is a senior analyst at Reznick Think Energy. E-mails: mcrowdis@reznickthinkenergy.com and erhodin@reznickthinkenergy.com
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FACILITY CORNER
Improving Energy Efficiency in Data Campuses

BY MICHELLE BERLINER
he data center market has been considered, in many areas, to be a bright spot in the commercial real estate industry as more and more properties are being converted to accommodate data centers. While this trend is filling the need for more mission-critical facilities, it also poses a challenge from a sustainability perspective because these facilities consume a large amount of energy. According to the Department of Energy (DOE) in 2006, U.S. data centers used approximately 61 billion kilowatt-hours, accounting for about 1.5 percent of all U.S. electricity consumption. More recently, a 2009 paper from the DOE stated that the annual source energy use of a two-megawatt data center is equal to the amount of energy consumed by 4,600 typical U.S. cars in one year. As the number of data centers increases, so will the demand for energy. The DOE has been working in cooperation with other agencies and the private sector to set energy efficiency measurements, metrics and reporting conventions for data centers to find potential solutions that will still meet this growing demand. According to the DOE, improving energy efficiency in data centers can have many benefits including: reducing business risk, lowering utility bills, reducing carbon emissions, and helping steer a company on a road of social responsibility. So what are some ways that developers and property owners can green their data centers?
tion of LED lighting in the U.S. over the next 20 years would reduce electricity consumption by 25 percent, save an accumulated $120 billion in energy costs, and reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 246 metric tons of carbon. And while tenants are already seeing results in cost savings with LED lighting, Convergence has also been able to reduce maintenance costs associated with replacing old halogen light bulbs throughout the campus.
CONSIDER YOUR NATURAL ENVIRONMENT

Because a critical part of most data centers is seclusion and security, many are set back from the road with Mother Nature providing her own sense of security. So its important for property owners to preserve the natural habitat that make up a buildings surroundings. Convergence is located on a 67-acre site, which is considered part of a natural wetlands preserve that fosters the growth of sensitive plant and animal life. The storm water management system was designed to control storm water runoff by preventing flooding in the area, as well as, to promote water quality as it is recharged into the natural aquifer. While Convergence has a firm grasp on the future, it has deep historic roots as well. The site has a long history as home to some of the worlds leading corporations and even holds a place in the history books. Developed by International Telephone and Telegraph in the 1950s, the propertys first building housed the switching equipment for the famous Red Phone, the hotline that provided secure communication between the White House and the Kremlin during the Cold War. Figuratively speaking, Convergence has gone from red to green and is issuing a new call: the push for energy efficiency. n
About the Author: Michelle Berliner is Vice President and Head of Asset Management for Brookfield Real Estate Opportunity Fund. She has managed $3.5 billion of a broad range of properties contained within portfolios of over 20 million square feet.
GREENING YOUR HVAC SYSTEM

The cost to both heat and cool an entire office campus can be astronomical and will certainly have an impact on the bottom line for your tenants, especially if youre using an antiquated HVAC system. Instead, consider using water source heat pumps like the system installed at Convergence. Water heat pumps have four times the heating and cooling carrying capacity than other systems more typically found in other office buildings. While the cost to install may be a bit more, water source heat pumps have already proven lower operating costs for Convergence. Another issue that a quality green HVAC system can address is indoor air quality for tenants. The more fresh air in a building, the better. Consider installing independent ventilation units within each building. This will also provide free seasonal cooling. At Convergence, the use of unitary water source heat pumps promotes multiple zoning, system redundancy, energy efficiency, and individual comfort levels. The campus is equipped with a state-of-the-art Building Management System with direct digital controls for further efficiency.
LOOK TOWARD THE LED LIGHT

At Brookfields Convergence, in Whippany, NJ, one of green features includes LED lighting and lighting control systems. According to the DOE, the adop-
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Corning Cable Systems is
EXPANDING OPPORTUNITIES
When opportunities emerge, Corning Cable Systems wants you to have a solution. We are expanding our Pretium EDGE Solutions offering you new products for your data center needs. More density, more rack applications and more mounting options are all made possible with the new Pretium EDGE Solutions. When your data center has a demand, Corning Cable Systems has the answer. Pretium EDGE Solutions: Expanding Opportunities
2012 Corning Cable Systems LLC
13
FACILITY CORNER
Data Center Facility Vendor Perspectives on the Industry

BY JEFFREY R CLARK, PH.D
he data center market is at the center of a number of different trends and forces that raise a number of opportunities, as well as concerns. A good way to get a perspective on current and possibly future directions is to go to the vendors at the center of the market. To this end, The Data Center Journal asked two vendors Schneider Electric and Deerns America to provide their takes on whats driving the industry and what the future looks like for data center facilities.
Despite economic, regulatory and other challenges, data center customers and operators are striving for maximum availability. Mere seconds of down time, in some industries, can translate into huge losses in both money and reputation. Ensuring uptime is thus an ever more important priority that vendors are aiming to address. But the difficulties facing companies are not all bad; a challenging marketplace also creates opportunities for agile organizations that can foresee and meet changing demands, making flexibility an important asset.
OVERALL TRENDS FOR DATA CENTER FACILITIES

If you read the news, youve probably seen a number of headlines relating to the economy, with topics ranging from stubbornly high unemployment to quantitative easing (read: money printing) by the Federal Reserve to questions of whether the hoped-for recovery will ever really materialize. The economy is as much a concern in the data center market as anywhere, and its something on the mind of executives at vendor companies. Linked to economic concerns is the cost of energythe fuel of the data center. Rising prices and ever growing demand for services is driving companies and vendors to pursue energy efficiency as a means of reducing costs and gleaning more capacity out of a given amount of infrastructure. Such challenges are also leading many companies to consider cloud and hosting providers as an option, enabling reduction or elimination of capital costs in favor of steadier operational costs.
ECONOMY: UNCERTAIN
Although the Great Recession was officially declared over, the mantra of recovery hasnt quite stuck. Unemployment has remained high (and recent gains only reflected that many unemployed people are simply giving up the search for jobs), government spending is frenzied and many companies remain wary about spending. Kevin Brown, Vice President of Data Center Global Solutions Offer for Schneider Electrics IT Business, and Dave Johnson, Senior Vice President of Home and Business Networks (also for Schneider Electrics IT Business), reflect on this uncertainty: Overall, we continue to see an uncertain world economy and mixed business trends in our key markets. Nevertheless, the burgeoning data center market has to some extent bucked the troubled times. Our global sales grew over 11% in the first half of 2012. We have continued to focus our investments and activities around the segments, customers, applications and countries where we see the most opportunities. Luck-
ily, the data center space continues to be an area of strong growth and opportunity. But not all is bad in a rough economy. Tight budgets and uncertain futures can force companies to cast off complacency and begin looking for ways to run their businesses more efficiently and in a manner that better serves customers. The data center market is no exception. In these uncertain times, companies are becoming smarter about seeking out and leveraging opportunities to save, said Brown and Johnson. They are leveraging technologies that allow them to scale up their IT resources as they grow versus investing in everything they need up front. Companies are using scalable IT architectures and leveraging new IT technologies that are faster, cheaper or drive greater productivity (i.e., smartphones and tablets). They are leveraging cost and flexibility advantages offered by colocation companies and cloud service providers. Gary Cudmore, data center principal at Deerns America, also sees similar movement among customers in this sector, albeit along the lines of design challenges or competitions. We are seeing a very interesting development: companies are issuing an open design challenge to qualified companies. The client will issue a basis of design (BOD) document and have the responding companies put together a conceptual design including construction costs and schedule. They will then select a short list of finalists to present their design. The finalists get a fee for making it to the short list and the client then selects the winner. For Deerns America, however, success must be judged over a fairly long span of
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time owing to the scope of the projects it tackles. Our sales funnel looks quite promising, Cudmore said, but projects of this magnitude [$20+ million] take a long time to fruitionland purchase or lease and then design and construction can take as long as 2436 months.
IT SPENDING: WHERES THE MONEY?

Regardless of perceptions of the current economy, the proof is in the pudding: IT spending. Customers that are buying are typically operating in high growth segments and countries, or they have delayed upgrades/investments for so long that they have little choice but to buy, note Brown and Johnson. Customers not buying have sufficient resources to support current requirements, but are waiting for growth to return before investing to support new demand. This situation raises the need for companies to cut costs and increase efficiency wherever possible. One option is to cut the large capital costs of an in-house data center by outsourcing either to the cloud or by taking a halfway approach with colocation or hosting, allowing a provider to handle the data center facilities portion. Cudmore said, In regards to new data centers or expansions, I think many companies are comfortable with either colocation or the cloud as a way to outsource their data center services. He adds that the choice of colocation or hosting is not only a financial decision but also one of philosophy. Some companies want to be able to see and touch their servers everyday (server huggers) versus companies who are comfortable trusting third parties to manage or at least house their IT assets. Brown and Johnson also note the effect of costs on the decision: In cases where the long term cost of moving and managing IT workloads off-premise are less than managing these on-site, managed hosting and cloud services are clearly becoming viable choices. On the efficiency end, rising energy prices and increasing data center demand for energy as customers (whether internal or external) expect more services motivate companies building or retrofitting data centers to choose their infrastructure carefully. It is clear that companies are now prioritizing much higher the efficiency of the systems they are installing, according to Brown and Johnson. In the past, the only criterion you would typically discuss
would be how to get higher availability levels. Now companies want high availability, but also will look for technologies and approaches that will achieve the required level of availability as efficiently as possible. Thus, the challenge is not just to get the job done using fewer resources, but to do it more reliably as well. Meeting both aspects of this challenge necessitates a commitment to both efficiency and qualityboth of which require some level of monetary investment. The focus on efficiency, however, aims to cut costs in the long term, both by reducing infrastructure purchases and by pushing existing infrastructure to maximize its output. Since the financial crisis, its clear that companies are watching their pennies very closely, note Brown and Johnson. Add to that the continuing uncertainty and increasing speculation that the economy may ultimately be heading back into recession, given the unresolved fiscal turmoil in the European Union and slowing growth in Asia. The economic situation has translated into three changes in decision making. First, companies are looking to see if they can extend the life of the existing infrastructure. Instead of building a new data center, we see companies looking to consolidation and higher densities to squeeze what they can out of the infrastructure they have. Second, there is a greater focus on total installed first cost than there has been in the past. Companies are beginning to look at not only the equipment cost, but installation as well. We think this is one of the drivers for the interest in prefabricated modular construction. Third, they look to colocation and/or cloud providers as an outlet for capacity. IT spending is thus not all or nothing when it comes to outsourcing. Companies with in-house data centers may look to a mixed approach, combining some in-house IT with the cloud or colocation to take up slack. Cudmore notes, Certainly the pay-as-you-grow approach is dominating the design approach. Reducing the upfront capital is a big concern. We are seeing companies looking to lease the physical infrastructure and turn it from capex to opex on the balance sheet.
to taking innovative approaches to facilities, the ability to flow with market changes is also critical. Companies are really focusing on a data center that is not only energy efficient and green, said Cudmore. What they really want is extreme flexibility. The fear of the unknown and what the future will hold for their IT strategy is driving this requirement. The key for data center designers and engineers is to pursue implementation strategies that are agile, efficient and affordableand that meet demand all the time. The economy makes the data center facilities task a difficult one, but its not all bad news. The silver lining of a recession is that customers reevaluate their priorities and challenge their traditional approaches, said Brown and Johnson. We have sharpened our focus on new products and continued our strong investments in marketing communication and our sales staff. We have also continued to invest R&D while capitalizing on the growth in developing economies as well as other key growth segments such as data centers and the smart grid. We continue to focus on our strong product offering as well as delivering complete solutions for our customers through architectures that span hardware, software and services.
CONCLUSIONS
The data center market is seeing rising demand, but stagnant economic conditions are putting pressure on companies to meet that demand affordably. The focus in the industry is centering on efficiency and outsourcing, with the cloud and colocation providers catching the overflow from companies that do not wish to implement new or expand existing in-house infrastructure. Schneider Electric and Deerns America overlap on a number of points regarding market conditions, although each offers different points of focus for meeting the challenges of that market. Data centers have managed to dodge some of the consequences of the recession that have hit other industries much harder. No end to increasing demand for IT services seems to be in sight, so the market shows a number of positive signs. But the next year or two may signal whether companies will become more optimistic about the economy, commensurately increasing spending and investment, or whether a continued lack of growth or even downturn means much leaner times. n
MEETING THE CHALLENGE

Despite the economic uncertainty, companies must still meet the demand of customers, whether those customers are within the company or without. In addition
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DESIGN CORNER
Resuscitating the Legacy Data Center

BY ERIC HOLZWORTH
N
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o doubt, data is the global currency driving the worlds economic engine, and there is no singular Fort Knox to store all the data. Exacerbating the situation are cloud computing services, the ubiquitous connectivity for mobile devices, government compliance and regulations as well as backup, storage and disaster recovery needs. This new data-driven economy has contributed to the massive data center construction era we are now living inthink Google, Amazon, Apple and Facebook. As data centers continue to face growing volumes of information to process and store, a series of surveys is highlighting what has become a serious problem-data center capacity is strained and strug-
gling to meet ongoing demands. According to an Uptime Institute survey of 525 data center operators and owners 71 percent of which were located in North America - more than a third of data center facilities will run out of space, power, or cooling, or all the above by the end of 2012, Part of the problem facing enterprises is that most data centers were built 10 to 15 years ago to support mainframe technology and lack the capabilities needed to support current technologies, David Cappuccio, Gartner vice president and chief of research for data centers, said in a recent article in InformationWeek. In the height of the Dot-Bomb era (1998 2002), a conservative estimate of over five million square feet of raised
floor data center space was constructed to meet the needs of the Killer App that was anticipated to be right around the corner. As the market imploded, and the original owners of the facilities failed, opportunistic companies both enterprise and collocation firms snatched up these data centers at cents on the dollar and through the ensuing years have filled them with servers running critical enterprise applications or have leased rack or cage space to thousands of collocation customers. Unfortunately, for todays owners and operators of those facilities, they were designed to an average power and cooling density of 50-75 watts per square foot (w/ sf). Not to mention that the facilities had redundancies and reliability far below what is required by todays high density blade
servers and the critical applications being run on them. Fast forward to 2012, and the industry is awash in legacy data centers with too little power, too little cooling capacity, and aged, inefficient equipment nearing the end of its useful life. And, the design of these centers are lacking in the areas of redundancy, concurrent maintainability, monitoring and the advantages of over a decade of advances in technology to support the ever increasing dependency on data. Not a pretty site (pun intended)
The need for more power and cooling, inefficient energy use and the risk of downtime due to the failure of aged infrastructure are just some of many drivers for change. The option to replicate and migrate existing IT systems to a new site can cost three times that of improving the existing facility, and can in itself be fraught with coordination challenges and risk.
one chance for success, you better practice like its the Super Bowl. All critical methods of procedure (MOPs) for system cutovers or tie-ins need to be practiced in numerous dry runs, and under similar conditions (nights, weekends, etc.). This requires a level of commitment from all parties to devote the resources and time to ensure these critical events are perfectly executed.
LANDING THE SPACE SHUTTLE

Most people dont realize that the space shuttle, upon re-entry, had no means of propulsion. The shuttle was glided in, with one shot at a safe landing. In the event of any errors in speed or trajectory, there were no engines to rely on to allow for another attempt. Disaster could not be averted. However, in 133 landing attempts, there were no issues with touching down safely. This near-miracle was accomplished by the newest technology, meticulous planning, numerous practice runs to fine tune the plan, and a carefully coordinated team of experts. Although the stakes arent nearly as high, the steps to a successful landing when resuscitating a legacy data center are similar:
Coordination
THE DOMINO EFFECT

Resuscitating a legacy data center is a study in the Domino Effect. Typically, the main issue is power density. New facilities today are being designed to a minimum of 150 w/sf of critical power, with many climbing to 200w/sf and beyond. Increasing the power to the existing building may be as simple as adding more transformers to the utility vault, or in worse cases, requiring the utility to bring in a larger, typically medium voltage feed. But this is only the first domino to fall. As critical power density is increased, so too is the need to increase the cooling capacity. Both of these factors will typically require additional floor, roof and/ or yard space to accommodate new power and cooling equipment, or a consolidation of existing equipment into options that provide more power or cooling on a per square foot basis of available infrastructure space. Then comes more fuel storage for all of that new generator capacity (assuming the local fire codes dont limit the quantities). If greater redundancies or an upgrade to concurrent maintainability are desired, even more space may be needed for additional equipment But space is only one part of the equation. The second row of Dominos is the implementation. Old equipment may need to be removed to make way for new equipment, new equipment needs to be started up and tested, and the entire new system commissioned all while maintaining power and cooling to the existing critical servers that are paying the bills. Doubtless, the challenges of resuscitating a legacy data center are many. In addition to the issues mentioned above, most data center renovations will take 15% to 25% longer to implement, and with increased costs due to inefficiencies in the construction process. But in most cases, maintaining the status quo is not an option.
The mission requires careful coordination by a firm with extensive experience in renovating and improving existing critical facilities. In most cases, an integrated design, procurement and construction approach will yield the tightest coordination, and eliminate miscommunications that can prove disastrous at the zero hour. This lead critical facilities partner should have both the construction skills and inhouse electrical and mechanical engineering expertise to coordinate intelligently between all stakeholders in the project, including collaborating with the owners operations team, the data center customers, and the commissioning agent, to ensure that the goals of all parties performance, reliability, efficiency and financial are being achieved.
Technology
Advances such as in-row cooling; hot and cold aisle containment; computational fluid dynamics (CFD) modeling; CRAC units with electrically commutated (EC) fans and UPS systems with integrated redundancies allow more power and cooling in less footprint and more efficiently and reliably than 10-12 years ago.
READY FOR THE NEXT DECADE

Undeniably, both the reasons for resuscitating a legacy data, and the challenges, are numerous. However, with a well planned, coordinated and practiced approach, led by a strategic partner with the right mix of data center construction experience and technical expertise, the advantages can be just as numerous. The owner will enjoy the benefits of increased energy efficiency, decreased maintenance and repair costs, and of course the successful achievement of business goals which prompted the need for improvements over the course of the next 10-12 years. Then, its back to the drawing board for round two! n
About the Author: Eric Holzworth is COO of Rubicon Professional Services, a missioncritical construction management firm that takes an owners approach to the design and building of data centers, encompassing every complex aspect from design, power load, energy management/ conservation, equipment procurement/ integration and even financing.
Planning
Precision is key to a successful implementation plan when it comes to a complete overhaul of the electrical, mechanical and/or fire systems of an active data center. In most cases a phased installation will be required to accommodate the migration of critical loads to new infrastructure equipment, and then de-commissioning the old infrastructure so the remaining new parts can be implemented. Constructability issues need to be determined and solved up front to avoid surprises halfway through a critical implementation phase.
Practice
Most design or construction professionals dont consider practice to be part of their typical process. But when there is only
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IT CORNER
Storage Automation
BY BRENT RHYMES
Leveraging the Power of
Keeping Data In-house:
nterprise storage needs are continuing to grow with no slowdown in sight. With data representing the lifeline of a company, IT administrators are looking to the cloud as a means for storing, accessing and sharing data. IDC research predicts that by 2015, public storage cloud services will grow by more than 25 percent. While there is no doubt that these clouds can be useful for certain applications, not all provide the right availability, performance and protection for an enterprises critical business data. With IP policies requiring companies to keep their most sensitive data in-house, the unintended side effect is the daily flood of storage requests, draining IT resources and productivity. To address this deluge, storage administrators are examining the benefits of adding automation software to their storage environments, transforming them into private storage cloud infrastructures. Storage automation can deliver the availability, performance and protection users require, letting storage administrators keep pace with business needs and maintain control over their data. Storage
automation impacts companies by reducing resource requirements, increasing service levels and lowering provisioning costs by up to 80 percent. Private storage clouds ensure that information remains safely within the IT departments security parameters while providing the necessary storage capacity across the enterprise.
Storage requests can be fulfilled quickly and accurately by automated, self-service storage portals.
IT departments get thousands of storagerelated requests a year. The introduction of a self-service portal and automated fulfillment significantly decreases the amount of time it takes for a business unit to request and receive new storage resources. This allows storage administrators to focus their time on implementing storage strategy initiatives and future automated storage administration tasks. Now, requests that once took weeks can be completed in hours or days, while minimizing human error.
KEY BENEFITS OF STORAGE AUTOMATION AND PRIVATE STORAGE CLOUDS

Automation helps storage administrators overcome the challenge of complex storage environments while also leveraging benefits such as increased service levels. Storage automation and private storage clouds are critical to the data center. Heres why:
Theres no slowdown in sight for data storage needs.

Industry analysts forecast that by 2020, IT departments will need to manage 50 times the amount of data they face today, with only 1.5 times the number of IT administrators. Automation is the only answer.
Storage automation allows companies to deliver storage quickly despite IT staffing limitations.
Storage automation enables delegation and self-service. With delegation, senior personnel can focus on strategy while less senior staff can deliver on storage requests. Through a self-service portal, custom-
20
ers can enter requests from a defined set of services applicable to their role and responsibility. Coupling delegation and self-service lightens the burden storage administrators face, while meeting end-user demands in a more expedient fashion.
Time spent on manual tasks is significantly reduced.

The typical storage-provisioning request can take between three and 25 business days to fulfill. By automating, the provisioning timeframe can be reduced to minutes. Storage administrators maintain control by leveraging rule-based policies and wrapping user-specific services.
that goes into expanding existing storage, re-tiering, archiving, backing up, setting up and managing replication, and possibly even cleaning up short-lived storage. Its no surprise that things that are broken will need to be fixed. These concerns are leading to automation initiatives that will allow IT staff to spend more time evaluating new storage technologies and designing storage service offerings.
Disaster Can Strike Any Business...

ight now, your data center is under R attack! You may not believe it because things appear to be running smoothly. The servers are accessible and users are not complaining. Everything appears to be under control. However... just beyond that wall, above those ceiling tiles, or under the raised floor is a disaster waiting to strike. Even worse, it has your name written all over it! No one really knows when or how a disaster will strike. We just know the potential is always there. So preparation is critical to minimizing its impact on computers, networks, users and the entire organization.
Room Alert & TemPageR
Storage automation turns tribal knowledge into corporate knowledge.

Good storage administration resources are a valuable asset to todays corporations. However, much of the knowledge about an enterprises storage environment is in the heads of these storage administrators. Putting policies and workflows into a storage automation tool allows that tribal knowledge to be converted to corporate knowledge, reducing human error in the process.
An assessment of specific application needs enables administrators to better fulfill requests.

Storage implementation, configuration and re-configuration are daunting tasks for IT staff due to completion times. However, automated policies designed around applications allow storage teams to fulfill these requests faster under heightened demands. Automation facilitates intelligent storage selection and applies application needs to the correct tier, array, device group and data protection assignment.
AUTOMATION: RETAIN DATA INTERNALLY

The current data explosion is a trend that will be with us for years to come. Storage automation helps organizations implement and manage private storage clouds to keep their data in-house. By automating storage provisioning, reclamation and administration, storage administrators have an invaluable insurance policy to help them keep pace with the anticipated demand, and meet todays immediate gratification mentality of end-users, while giving them some muchneeded breathing room to focus on planning for the enterprises future storage needs. n
About the Author: Brent Rhymes, CEO of iWave Software, is responsible for sales, marketing, product development and operational activities at the company. Brent has more than 18 years of sales and marketing experience in the IT services and computer software industries. Brent has co-founded two successful technology startups including Knoxville-based FileKeeper, Inc. (sold to Yosemite Technologies in 2006) and Houstonbased Software Realization Corporation (sold to NetIQ Corporation in 2000). Brent has held senior executive positions at NetIQ Corporation, NEON Systems and Scalable Software. He has also held sales and management positions at Microsoft Corporation, IBM and Exxon Company USA. Brent holds a Bachelor of Science degree in computer science from the University of Tennessee, where he graduated with honors, and a masters degree in business administration in marketing from the University of St. Thomas.
AVTECH is the worldwide leader in making monitors and sensors that allow easy remote monitoring of environmental conditions in computer rooms, data centers and other types of facilities. These conditions include:

Temperature & Heat Index Humidity Flooding / Water Smoke / Fire Main & UPS Power Room Entry, Motion Relays, Cameras & More
Companies feel they need to keep control over storage demands.

Automation allows storage administrators to maintain control by letting them create policies wrapped by services dictating how storage should be provisioned, remediated and reclaimed in accordance with vendor, community and corporate best practices.
Enterprises are no longer dependent on a single vendor.

The right storage automation solution helps IT administrators avoid getting locked into the specifics of arrays and drive types by removing the underlying infrastructure. Storage is no longer selected based on vendor or array, but rather is intelligently selected based on performance and protection.
When threatening conditions are detected, AVTECH monitors will immediately notify managers via todays most advanced technologies, enabling a timely support response or auto corrective action. This allows organizations to avoid or minimize downtime, protect against costly hardware damage and eliminate other related expenses. With prices from $195 to $1195, there is a solution for every organization and budget.
Cloud computing assists storage administrators in fulfilling requests.

With the continuing growth of data, provisioning of new storage is a main concern for many storage administrators. These administrators understand the amount of effort www.datacenterjournal.com
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Eco-mode Economics
Advertorial
Is your high-efficiency UPS really that eco-nomic?

By Peter Panfil, Vice President Liebert AC Power, Emerson Network Power
In todays always-on, always efficient data center environments, its easy to get caught up in the numbers, especially when it comes to UPS performance.
High efficiency is now a standard in UPS design, but selecting the system with the biggest savings potential requires you to take a close look at the fine print. With newer eco-mode models advertising efficiency as high as 99 percent, it pays to know what is real and what is fantasy. Following are three things you need to know when selecting your UPS system and managing it to achieve real energy savings.
Avoid the ratings game

Thanks to advances in UPS technology, the potential to cut energy costs by tens of thousands of dollars annually has never been greater. But its not going to happen because you bought the 99% efficient UPS system versus the one thats 97% efficient. While efficiency ratings matter, the high numbers advertised are based on full load levels something the vast majority of data centers never see in their lifetime. Bottom line: Dont assume the UPS with the highest efficiency rating will cut total cost of ownership the most. Make it part of your decision making process, but not the determining factor.
The Liebert NXL from Emerson Network Power is one of the most efficient and reliable high-power UPS systems available, due to features such as Intelligent Eco-mode and active inverter technology.
Think eco-intelligent
Eco-mode has done wonders for improving UPS efficiency, but it comes with a cost: Some methods of switching to eco-mode and back again may leave availability vulnerable. To address this issue, Emerson Network Power offers an improved version called Intelligent Eco-mode. This advanced technology employs an active inverter to create an almost seamless transfer of power with a smooth waveform. While the power requirements are fractionally higher than other methods, the result is an estimated 4% to 5% energy savings over standard operation, all without compromising availability. Bottom line: To maximize energy savings and maintain reliability, select a UPS with Intelligent Eco-mode.
Higher voltage = bigger savings

It might sound strange to think that upping your power distribution voltage can actually save energy, but it can and a lot of it. In most data centers, the UPS delivers power to the server at 208V. By raising your voltage to 240V, you can expect energy savings of 2% or more, depending on the power distribution configuration. Bottom line: Higher voltage is a good thing, and most data centers are equipped to handle it. However, not all UPS systems are, so select one that can provide higher voltage.
Got a power management question for Peter or want a complete UPS selection checklist? Visit knowUPS.com.
By the Numbers
48% 56% $6K 6-7%

22 |
Energy use of infrastructure equipment cooling, UPS, PDU and lighting Growth rate of electricity consumption globally between 2005 and 2010 Estimated cost to operate a server annually in a typical data center Estimated savings achieved by deploying a UPS with higher voltage and Intelligent Eco-mode THE DATA CENTER JOURNAL
TOTAL DATA CENTER ENERGY CONSUMPTION
Support systems
IT equipment
Source: Energy Logic 2008, 2012
IT CORNER
Next Generation Optical Fiber Connectivity Solutions for the Mission Critical Data Center
BY BILL CHARUK
s todays evolving data centers confront bandwidth capacity challenges, the migration from 10 gigabits per second (Gb/s)to 40 and 100 Gb/s, and higher density and cloud computing requirements , choosing the correct connectivity method has never been more important to meet the demands for optimum reliability, performance, scalability, cost effectiveness, and time to restoration. Various research studies assert that the physical layer accounts for nearly 60 to 80% of network downtime, elevating connectivity from an important focus to a mission critical and crucial decision. As the data center evolves with growing challenges, so must the connectivity solutions evolve simultaneously and harmoniously to resolve those challenges. Therefore, optical fiber and connectivity manufacturers have innovated the next generation connectivity solution the field installable splice-on connector or SOC. The splice-on connector (MPO, SC, LC, FC, ST) has now been added to the mix of familiar legacy field installable connectivity methods still widely used:
Field installable (puck and polish) connectors, Pre-polished/Mechanical connectors Factory Pre-terminated cable assemblies To make an educated connectivity decision, it is important to become familiar with the splice-on connector and to evaluate the advantages and disadvantages of each popular connectivity method deployed today as they pertain to the high density data center environment and according to the following major criteria: Performance and reliability for multimode and single-mode fiber types Flexibility, speed, and ease of use for fiber installations and cable builds, MACs, and restoration Scalability and future proofing Within the examination of the connector methods, references to cost effectiveness are also made, providing the essential information with which to determine the correct connectivity decision to meet the needs of the data center today and tomorrow.
PERFORMANCE AND RELIABILITY

To determine any methodologys appropriateness for a network, industry standards and specifications must be considered. Table 1 shows the current allowable connection and channel insertion loss for next generation systems operating at 40 or 100 Gigabits per second. Notice the low loss requirements for the connections in the optical pathway. The last highlighted column lists the allowable connection loss budget that comprises a cumulative loss based upon fiber, lengths, channel insertion and other specific characteristics and, not connector loss (i.e. the total loss of a mated pair of connectors). All connector methods used in data centers need to meet these specifications to allow for seamless system upgrades to the next generation speeds and to ensure that the network will work reliably over the installed fiber optic link. The field installable puck and polish methods advantages can be rapid deployment in the field and low cost. Its success, however, depends on the experience of the
Table 1: Channel Insertion Loss and Connection Loss Budgets for 40G and 100G Systems Data Rate 40-Gbe 40-Gbe 100-Gbe 100-Gbe Designation 40GBase-SR4 40GBase-SR4 100GBase-SR10 100GBase-SR10 Mb/s 40,000 40,000 100,000 100,000 Fiber Type OM3 OM4 OM3 OM4 Number of Fibers 8 8 20 20 Max Link Length (Meters) 100 150 100 150 Max Channel Insertion Loss (dB) 1.9 1.5 1.9 1.5 Allowable Connection Loss Budget (dB) 1.5 1.0 1.5 1.0
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installer and requires a fairly high skill set to achieve required insertion and return loss performance by hand polishing the end face of the ferrule to precisely the correct angle. Limitations include use of epoxies, an average 10% failure rate in large projects due to human error and fatigue, limited viability in single-mode systems, and often unacceptable return loss for APC (angled polish connectors). Another disadvantage is that puck and polish connectors are blind terminations, for which no actual or estimated loss associated with the connector is available until the full link is completed and personnel are in place at both ends of the link to complete power through testing. The mechanical connector method aligns a cleaved fiber with a pre-polished stub and utilizes a cam or crimp mechanism to mechanically splice the fibers. The advantages of this termination method include installation speed, low skill set, and the factory polished and inspected end face. Unlike the puck and polish method, these relatively expensive connectors offer various end face polishes from the factory, which are tested prior to use. The major disadvantage to this method is the reflectance and attenuation associated with the mechanical splice. To combat this, index matching gel is used to ensure reflections do not occur. However, this also presents a risk to the data center systems. The refractive index of index matching gel is temperature dependent. Figure 2 shows the relationship between temperature and the return loss as a function of the refractive index of the gel. Obviously, when the data center systems are operating normally, the performance of index matching gel is a low risk. If the data center should experience a temperature excursion, the gel may not be able to maintain system optical integrity or could even begin to flow out of the connector. While a data center may never see these temperatures, it is prudent to design the optical network in such a manner where this will not be a possible outcome of a temperature excursion due to loss of cooling capability, even for brief periods. Another consideration is that this method is also a blind termination process, requiring additional test equipment and time to test. Pre-terminated cable assemblies offer strong advantages, primarily the installed 24 | THE DATA CENTER JOURNAL
Figure 2: Return Loss and Refractive Index as a Function of Temperature
Image 1: LC, SOC Components
connectors that have been tested to meet attenuation performance standards. They also do not require any skill, other than connector cleaning, for use. Unfortunately, this solution has nontechnical drawbacks that make them an expensive and inconvenient solution for the data center. The pre-terminated cable method is costly when ordered from the factory. With space at a premium, storage of cable slack can be problematic. Even when the lengths are engineered, the addition of a small amount of cable length can lead to storage issues over time. The next generation solution, the splice-on connector (MPO, SC, LC, ST), is a hybrid technology consisting of a prepolished connector (APC, UPC, PC) and fiber stub that can be fusion spliced directly on the end of an optical fiber. Essentially, the SOC provides the advantages of a pigtail without the negative inventory or storage issues for a splice tray or cable slack. The SOC also takes advan-
tage of a factory polished end face that has been tested for attenuation and inspected for other defects. The use of fusion splicing is an advantage in and of itself in that there is no serious question in the industry of the fusion splices quality for reduced attenuation and the elimination of reflectance. When the fusion splice is hermitically sealed within the heat shrink or protective sleeve, an ultra reliable optical fiber termination is achieved that is more robust and optically superior to the mechanical splice. The SOC, in effect, is a connector/ pigtail that generates a factory-quality connection in a field installable method. The connector can be attached directly to a 250 micron or 900 micron buffered fiber, affording the flexibility for customized on-site cable builds at exact lengths, while eliminating the limitations of factory preterminated cables. To install this connector, todays easy to use, low skill fusion splicer with the appropriate fiber/connector holders is www.datacenterjournal.com
The data center is a unique environment within the enterprise network. The data center is the only network where speed, reliability, security and optical performance must remain uncompromised at all times. This is true during initial installations of optical links, repairs and restorations, moves, and any changes or rerouting that may occur over the life of the data center.
required. As backward compatibility with existing fusion splicers allows for more widespread adoption of this technology, connector jigs have been developed to retro-fit on many popular fusion splicers already owned by many installers. In addition to the factory polished end face, there are other major advantages. First, by using a fusion splicer with splice loss estimation capability, the technician can overcome the blind splice and get a reading of the estimated splice loss before actually fusing the fiber onto the pre-cleaved fiber stub of the connector. This step increases both productivity and yield while immediately ensuring acceptable insertion loss within specified tolerances. Figures 3 and 4 show the comparative performance results of the various connector methodologies.
FLEXIBILITY, SPEED, AND EASE OF USE FOR FIBER INSTALLATIONS AND CABLE BUILDS, MACS, AND RESTORATION
The data center is a unique environment within the enterprise network. The data center is the only network where speed, reliability, security and optical performance must remain uncompromised at all times. This is true during initial installations of optical links, repairs and restorations, moves, and any changes or rerouting that may occur over the life of the data center. Next generation technologies have the overall advantage of having solved the limitations of preceding technologies. Likewise, the splice-on connector has essentially
Figure 3: Insertion Loss Comparison
Figure 4: Return Loss Comparison
eliminated the weaknesses of the connector methods having preceded it. By using the fusion splicer with immediate performance feedback, the SOC solves the blind terminations and blind splices, along with the problematic epoxies, associated with the puck and polish and mechanical connector methods to improve speed, productivity and performance. Also, the SOC comes in all varieties of needed connector types and polishes not all made available by these methods. The SOC also solves the major limitations of pre-terminated cables by eliminating the shorts, excess slack, storage, pulling terminated cables through conduit that can damage the connectors, and logistic delays associated with this method. Pre-terminated cables are often used in emergency repair situations and are ordered for same day or next day delivery. Significant downtime of the optical path is possible when waiting for delivery of the assembly. If inventory is kept on site for these occurrences, having the correct length of jumper will result in high inventory costs. Similarly, the pre-terminated cable method slows down immediate data center moves, adds, and changes (MACs) while continually adding to project costs. With the SOC, exact cable builds can be now be accomplished on-site quickly and easily, as well as repairs, restorations, and any MACs crucial to the data center. If a new optical link needs to be established or an old one repaired, one end of an optical cable can be connectorized. The cable can then be easily routed to the termination point within the data center without having to be concerned about damaging connectors during the installation. The second end can then be terminated at the exact required length so there is no additional slack needed to be stored anywhere along the pathway.
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Whether the case is installing new equipment requiring new type of connectors or addressing any MACs, the fusion splice-on connector allows for real-time scalability and upgrades. The technician can exchange connector types and build customized cable assemblies on-site in minutes, thereby eliminating dependency on the factory and its related logistical delays and costs. The same applies for quick restorations. Since the fusion splicer completes the connection operation, all the technician needs to do is move the SOC from the splice area, move the heat shrink protection sleeve over the splice and place it in the curing oven on the splicer. Assembly of the final connector is simple; slide the connector housing over the ferrule assembly and capture the strength yarns on the backside of the connector; the total process of a single fiber termination takes less than three minutes to complete.
Image 2: MPO SOC Components
SCALABILITY AND FUTURE PROOFING TO MEET THE NEEDS OF THE DATA CENTER TODAY AND TOMORROW
To ensure the high-density and 40 and 100 Gigabit speed migration of the data center, which requires at least six Chart 1: Termination Time Study MPO Versus Single Fiber Solutions for Various Fiber Counts to 12 times more fiber, the nextgeneration MPO SOC connector has been developed. Until recently, the MPO has typically been installed in a factory and shipped to the field, since no puck and polish versions exist. With the escalated use of high precision mass fusion splicers, MPO SOCs are able to be field installed with very high quality and reliability. The immediate on-site scalability of the SOC to customize the optical fiber 26 | THE DATA CENTER JOURNAL
infrastructure of the data center ensures an already future-proofed data center network. The MPO version enjoys the same advantages of the single fiber connector. Depending on the type of cable to be terminated, productivity and speed for fiber installations, MACs, and restoration are greatly improved. For example, terminating 12 fibers simultaneously on a ribbon cable versus twelve individual LC connectors on 3mm single fiber cable can save approximately 86% on installation
time. Chart 1 below shows a comparison of installation times using an MPO SOC connector versus single fiber connections on 3mm cable and 900 micron fiber. Chart 1 shows that as the fiber counts increase, the time savings increase dramatically when using the MPO SOC. Of course, to be a viable solution, the methodology must meet industry standards for optical pathways. In Table 2, the initial Table 1outlining network standards is revisited and now includes the maxi-
Table 2: Network Specifications as They Relate to Limiting Case MPO SOC Connector.
Data Rate Designation Mb/s Fiber Type Number Max Link Length Max Channel Allowable Connection LYNX2 MPO SOC of Fibers (Meters) Insertion Loss (dB) Loss Budget (dB) Maximum Loss (dB)
40-Gbit Ethernet 40-Gbit Ethernet 100-Gbit Ethernet 100-Gbit Ethernet
40GBase-SR4 40GBase-SR4 100GBase-SR10 100GBase-SR10
40,000 40,000 100,000 100,000
OM3 OM4 OM3 OM4
8 8 20 20
100 150 100 150
1.9 1.5 1.9 1.5
1.5 1.0 1.5 1.0
0.70 0.70 0.70 0.70
mum expected connector loss for the MPO SOC. It is clear from the data presented that there exists ample headroom for additional splices in the system and still be able to meet the end to end loss budgets required for 40G/100G transmission. The MPO SOC complies to US: EIA/TIA-604-5, FOCIS 5 and International: IECX-61754-7 standards.
CONCLUSION
Next generation data centers require next generation connectivity solutions. By combining the advantages of legacy con-
4thLevelAd_DataCenterJournal(SeptFacilitiesInsertion).pdf
nection technologies into one which uses the latest advancements in fusion splicer technology, the splice-on connector enables rapid, high quality connectivity with the speed, performance, and immediate scalability required by todays evolving data center. As fiber counts continue to increase with the advent of 40G and 100G transmission schemes, installation of single and MPO connectors in the field, resulting in excellent optical integrity, will be a requirement for optimum customer service and reduced operating costs, while lowering risks associated with legacy methodology and connector design. Finally, the MPO
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SOC is ready to support the coming higher speed networks, which will one day become ubiquitous in the data center and allow for graceful growth when further advancements in network transmissions continue to emerge.n
About the Author: With over 20 years of experience in the communications and information industry, Bill Charuk serves as senior technical manager for Sumitomo Electric Lightwave (www.sumitomoelectric. com), overseeing its Data Center Solutions division. Bill can be reached at bcharuk@ sumitomoelectric.com.
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DCIM and Co-Location:

A Roadmap for Success
DRIVING FORCES
Data centers today look nothing like those of 20 years ago. Companies face a massive amount of information to store and manage. Rising energy prices and new technologies, such as cloud,have further complicated IT infrastructures all of which has thrown a monkey wrench into service offerings. In its 2010 Digital Universe study, analyst firm IDC reports a 62% increase in digital information between 2008 and 2010, to the tune of 1.2 zettabytes. Putting this into perspective, just one zettabyte is the equivalent of The digital information created by every man, woman and child on Earth tweeting continuously for 100 years. In the firms 2011 report, IDC paints an even clearer picture: The volume of digital information to be stored is doubling every two years a corollary of Moores Law Take this to the business environment. Think about the endless possibilities for creating data: E-mail, invoices, billing, customer data to name a few. Theres truly no limit to the amount data being created. But thats only a portion of the issue. Businesses also have to contend with the explosive growth of processing all this data applications, Web apps, mobile phone apps, Internet usage that is also driving the proliferation. Now lets look at cloud. Most operators have plans to make the transition, if they havent already. The cost and efficiencies of hosting key services via a cloud model are too good to ignore. But its also causing many to rethink the size of their infrastructures. Gartner Group estimates the cloud services market will reach $129 bil-
BY SEV ONYSHKEVYCH
o-location is nothing new. A highly useful alternative to do-it-yourself, its a viable option for any company looking to build out the data center. In this challenging economic environment, there is more pressure than ever to cut costs. As companies explore new ways to keep expenses in check, many feel it doesnt make sense to incur additional capital investments to expand in-house data centers. Enter the co-location or Co-Lo, or a bit more broadly, the Multi-Tenant Data Center. Currently, its estimated there are more than 1,000 co-location data centers in the United States alone. But the road to co-location is getting bumpy. With a large number of competitors, Co-Los are looking for ways to differentiate their offerings, and they cant always choose to win by cutting prices; at an extreme, the cheapest co-los are pure real estate plays. Many must get creative through new value-added services; the answer can be found in offering special Data Center Infrastructure Management (DCIM), to handle a multi-tenant data center (or multiple centers). Simply put: customers need better visibility into their piece of real estate and equipment within Co-Los. A strong provider will offer customers a clear roadmap delivering all information necessary to be successful and in real-time. But for years, operators achieved this in a highly manual fashion wasting both time and money. So where do we go from here? For many, DCIM has become the GPS necessary to lead providers in the right direction and continue to show the desired path.
lion by 2013. This is great for the market, but tough on data centers as the Cloud merely means servers and storage managed by someone else, somewhere else, but you still have hardware, which puts significant strain on current data center resources. As a recent article points out: While the cloud term seems somewhat celestial and ethereal, the impact has been immediate and forceful on the wholesale and co-location data center industry as it strives to keep pace with the rapid spike in corporate demand, with the growth in total data usage and storage rising to nearly incomprehensible numbers. In May 2011, The Uptime Institute confirmed this claim. In a survey of data center owners and operators, 36% reported data centers would run out of power, cooling or space by 2012. According to the report, operators must now explore options to handle the load, including co-location. Sixty-two percent said they would handle demand by consolidating servers, while 40 percent choose to build a new data center, and 29 percent plan to lease co-location space.
STEERING CLEAR OF OLDER SYSTEMS

Theres simply too much data processing for co-location providers to conduct business the old way. No longer is it feasible to manage critical facilities manually or by leveraging older monitoring systems. Most have implemented some form of monitoring or management system. For the most part, these systems are proprietary and isolated monitoring systems, manually cobbled to present a unified view. Realtime information is non-existent and there
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is little room for collaboration across IT and facilities. Traditional systems are severely limited in their ability to monitor systems and respond to alerts. Drawbacks include:
Virtually all systems were designed for a model of corporate data centers in which there is one owner who manages and oversees all of the equipment. In a colocation environment, different rooms, different cages, different racks or different servers are owned, perhaps managed and operated by different tenants or clients. Each of them needs to be able to see their piece of the overall facility, and associated power equipment such as UPSes or PDUs, and branch circuits, but with no visibility to any other tenants location. Thick Client Requirements: Most systems have thick-client protocols that dont support the modern concept of 24/7, anywhere connectivity in a mobile business environment. Real-Time Monitoring: Older systems lack real-time monitoring and visibility. Gathering, blending and analyzing performance metrics from disparate monitoring systems across geographically dispersed data centers is time consuming and more prone to human error. Licensing Requirements: To proactively monitor a facility, all stakeholders must have access. Most operate with a per-user licensing agreement, making it extremely cost-prohibitive, blocking critical information from those who need it. The result is inefficient power use, higher costs, and more downtime. So where do we go from here? For many co-location providers, the answer can be found in Data Center Infrastructure Management (DCIM).
Designed for single-user data centers:
DESTINATION: DCIM
DCIM converges IT and data center facilities functionality into one unified system. The goal is to help Co-Los not only optimize energy usage, ensure correct equipment layout, and support new efforts towards virtualization, but also to allow tenants to be able to see and monitor their piece of the data. A good system is powered by a smart infrastructure that monitors, collects, and analyzesdata in real-time. True DCIM manages infrastructures holistically, including all IT assets and efficiently linking both IT and facilities. www.datacenterjournal.com
According to 451 Research, 2010 market revenues for DCIM were $245 million. This number will experience a compound annual growth rate of 39% through 2015 growing the marketplace to more than $1 billion. In his report DCIM: Going Beyond IT, Gartner analyst David J. Cappuccio reports data center managersand co-location providers cannot control costs unless they can access real-time data center software offering an accurate view of current consumption: Data center managers must have the information they need to make informed decisions for effective planning and management of data center assets and physical infrastructure to ensure the service levels the company expects. They also must have the insight needed to properly plan and forecast future data center capacities: including space, power, cooling and network connection DCIM provides insights and drives performance throughout the data center, including data center assets and physical infrastructure. True DCIM can adapt to changing IT environments, monitoring everything from infrastructure changes and failures to power and cooling. Features of a true DCIM solution include: Real-Time Monitoring: Enables the accurate, real-time viewing of information allowing for quick resolution. Tenant-Level Views: Ability for tenants to monitor, manage and be alerted on just their relevant section of the data center. Unified Information: A DCIM system is only as good as the information it provides. The right system creates a holistic view of all relevant information of the IT infrastructure and facility. Web-Based Interface: DCIM should be browser-based with the ability to deliver alarms via multiple devices. Users should receive alarms via e-mail, Web browser as well as through traditional methods of phone and pager. Easy Integration and Use: Advanced DCIM tools are easy and intuitive to use. Simple to configure in-house, they consequently eliminate time and cost from the vendor and consultant. The best tools are vendor-neutral and interact with all data center systems with disparate protocols.
Multi-Location and International Capability: DCIM should monitor multiple

facilities in different countries and easily configurewith different measurement protocols.
Universal Access: No limitations to
the number of decision-makers viewing information. The best systems base cost on the number of points monitored rather than per user. Holistic Visibility: Next-generation monitoring systems provide more visibility, scalability and control over the entire global information environment. Gartner estimates DCIM tools can reduce operating expenses by as much as 20% and extend the life of a data center by as much as five years. As a co-location provider thats good news for your customers and even better news for your business.
At the highest levels, DCIM saves money while empowering workers. Manual processes clearly drain resources and come at significant costs. A good DCIM offering significantly improves team response to requests for adding, moving or changing computer equipment -- reducing time spent analyzing, testing, and verifying capacity at each location. It also dramatically cuts downtime.This is especially important when monitoring energy usage spikes that can shut down a system.
DCIM AND CO-LOCATION: BEGINNING OF A JOURNEY

DCIM is a powerful tool for colocation providers. With the help of automated, real-time management, the tool providesfaster response times, reduced downtime, increased capacity and dramatic energy savings. This is just good business driving a higher quality of service and helping to build out a customer base while saving money. But DCIM is only the beginning of the journey. Undoubtedly, market dynamics change, infrastructures grow, and new technologies are integrated. Whats great about DCIM is its flexible enough to expand as the customer base grows, adapting to new environments seamlessly. For those providing co-location services, DCIM is not just a technology it offers significant competitive advantages for capturing new customers. Several of these advantages are: Helping to ensure accurate billing. Enabling sales teams to reserve space. Tracking individual tenant usage. Offering more granular monitoring. Providing secure, Web-based portals for individual tenants. So, think its time to deploy a new tool to help attract and retain Co-Lo customers? Consider partnering with a DCIM solution provider that can offer the right blend of features to get you there customers will be including them on their RFPs! n
About the Author: Sev Onyshkevych is Chief Marketing Officer for FieldView Solutions, award-winning Data Center Infrastructure Management (DCIM) providers.
ACCELERATING CO-LOCATION
DCIM is quickly becoming the solution-of-choice for Co-Los. In this challenging environment, its the one key differentiator that can determine success. And these benefits are played out many times. Surveys of Co-Location providers have shown that DCIM helps in several areas: Faster response times Reduced risk of downtime Increased capacity utilization More accurate billing Ability to generate more revenue from given physical, power and cooling capacity. Energy savings Greater management involvement This is proven time and again in several core areas. The first proof point is power management. DCIM can visualize true power usage identifying stranded power and eliminating overbuilding. Through current and historical usage reports, Co-Los accurately gauge power usage effectiveness and efficiency. Another manner in which DCIM sets providers apart is capacity management offering true insight into both IT and facilities. This allows for more effective collaboration with an ability to maximize space and power and uncover underutilized capacity. Cooling is yet another area where DCIM sets Co-Los apart. A comprehensive DCIM solution can manage the entire cooling system offering insight into actual capacity and utilization. It manages the system holistically and provides a real-time status for each device.
IT BUSINESS
Network Infrastructure
BY BOB ESKEW
Cabling Purchasing Trends
Shaping Tomorrows Data Centers

Structured cabling network infrastructures are playing a more prominent role than ever before in the reliability and operation of data centers. As a result, the network infrastructure cabling purchases made today will have an impact on data centers for years to come. Keep reading to learn about the trends that are driving todays network infrastructure purchases.
ADVANCING TECHNOLOGY
tructured cabling technologies for the data center are advancing at a rapid pace, and the structured cabling market is continuing to grow to keep up with demand. With the exception of 2009, the market for data center cabling has shown strong growth since 2008, increasing by a range of 16 to 22 percent during that time period. The cabling installed in data centers is expected to continue to account for 18 to 19 percent of the total cabling sold through 2015, according to BRISA, a research and consultancy organization that specializes in construction and building services. As technology continues to advance, previous generations of technologies are fast becoming obsolete, such as Category 5e cables. In fact, Category 5e cables are no longer recognized as a standard for horizontal cabling, according to the Telecommunications Industry Association TIA942-A standard. Typically, the bandwidth of a Category 5e cable is 87 percent utilized with gigabit Ethernet, which doesnt leave much room for error. Though Category 5e may be capable of carrying gigabit Ether-
net, these cables limit the future uses of an infrastructure. Currently, Category 6 and Category 6a cables are the recommended standard. However, the United States is lagging behind when it comes to adopting Category 6a systems. According to a recent study by BRISA, the United States adoption rate of Category 6a systems was only 5 percent, compared to the worldwide adoption rate of 12 percent. Europe boasts a 29 percent adoption rate, which is the highest of any region in the world. The Asia-Pacific regions adoption rate of Category 6a was 4 percent in 2011, and South Africas was just 3 percent. This means that much of the world is still relying on Category 5e cables. In May of 2012, Cabling Installation and Maintenance published an article that predicted 10-Gbit/sec controller and adapter port shipments will surpass those of 1-Gbit/sec by 2014. Significant price drops, increases in server input /output (I/O) processing capabilities, virtualization and big data are the driving forces behind the adoption of 10GBase-T. The market research firm DellOro Group predicts that 10-Gbit/ sec devices will grow at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 33 percent over the next five years. In addition, new cabling industry standards and the increased
demand on data center throughput means that 40/100G Ethernet is expected to play a significant role in the next generation of data centers. In addition, the data center market is becoming a hotspot for highervalue products, including Multi-Fiber Push On connectors (MPOs) and OM4 fiber. The increase in sales of MPOs is mainly driven by top-of-rack and end-of-row architectures, according to BRISA. One of the biggest shifts took place this past year when fiber optic cable product sales outpaced sales of copper cable in 2011, as reported by Cabling Installation and Maintenance. Fiber now accounts for 50 percent of data center cabling value, which is a 46 percent increase from 2010. In 2011 fiber-optic connectivity accounted for 41 percent of the overall data center cabling market, and copper connectivity trailed behind at 33 percent.
MANUFACTURING TRENDS
In recent years, buyers have been taking a closer look at where and how cables are manufactured. One reason buyers are more concerned about the origin of cables is the rise in counterfeit cables. Counterfeit cables have become a hot button issue in
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the cabling industry, especially in the past year. Counterfeit cables are often perceived as coming only from overseas manufacturers, but the reality is, counterfeit cables can originate both domestically and overseas. Counterfeit cables are often made with copper-clad aluminum conductors instead of solid-copper conductors, or the conductors may be undersized. In addition, counterfeit cables lack the proper heat protection materials, resulting in a potential fire hazard. Cable that weighs significantly less than standard cable is often a telltale sign of counterfeit cable made of inferior materials. As a buyer, it is important to verify that the cables have been evaluated by Underwriters Laboratories (UL) and the Electrical Testing Laboratory (ETL). Beware that counterfeit cable may include a UL or ETL logo on the box, but that does not necessarily mean that the cable has been evaluated. Verify the UL and ETL numbers on all boxes of cable with each respective organization before purchasing.
OPEN STANDARDS VS. END TO END SYSTEMS

Buyers are becoming more educated about the options available for data center cabling. As a result, the debate over the benefits of end-to-end systems versus open standards systems has once again moved to the forefront. End-to-end systems are made up of technology from a single manufacturer. In contrast, open systems are comprised of interoperable components from multiple manufacturers that meet industry standards. Supporters of end-to-end systems believe that optimal performance is achieved by building a system with components from a single manufacturer, while proponents of open systems believe that optimal performance is achieved by using the latest and greatest technologies from multiple manufacturers in an interoperable system. Manufacturers in the cabling industry are often proponents of end-to-end systems; however, non-manufacturer industry organizations support interoperability. In fact, the TIA Commercial Building Wiring Standard (TIA-568) was established specifically to encourage manufacturers to build equipment and components that interoperate with the products of other manufacturers. Regardless of whether buyers purchase end-to-end systems or interoperable systems, all structured cabling manufactures have to comply with cabling standards from UL, ETL, and National Electrical Code (NEC), as well as the design and engineering standards of the EIA/TIA Commercial Building Wiring Standards.
DISTRIBUTION TRENDS
The traditional structured cabling industry supply chain has followed a multitier distribution channel for more than 50 years. In recent years, buyers have been reevaluating the distribution channel and weighing the benefits against the costs. The multi-layer channel can result in significant markups in the cost of structured cabling products. Products such as Category 5e cables and connectors, which are considered a commodity and are near the end of their product lifecycle, usually have a small markup of 10 to 15 percent when sold through a multi-tier distribution channel, but new, in-demand products may have markups as high as 70 percent when sold through distribution. Each stop on the distribution channel adds another layer of expense to cabling products. The traditional channel begins with a manufacturer who hires a manufacturers rep firm to sell the manufacturers products in a designated territory for a commission. The cabling products are then shipped to a distributor, who sells them to a contractor. The contractor is the final stop before the product is sold to end users. As a result of the added costs, many buyers are foregoing the distribution channel and purchasing cable through direct buy from reputable manufacturers.
a result, future proofing is a major concern among buyers. High-performance cables are helping data center network infrastructures handle the increasing need for speed and high-volume data transfers. As an added bonus, high-performance cables also promote energy efficiency and have a long lifespan, saving money on both energy costs and replacement cables. In addition to managing mobility, data centers also have to be equipped to handle the explosive growth of video and video conferencing in the corporate environment. Video is fast becoming a common communication tool in the workplace. In fact, one-third of all corporations report using video at least once a week, according to the 2011 IMS Enterprise Web Communications Survey. Furthermore, organizations are not just consuming videothey are also producing it and storing it for training, executive communication, collaboration and corporate messaging purposes. However, video usage is often sporadic and unpredictable. Todays data center network infrastructures have to be built to handle the growing amount of data transfers. n
About the Author: Bob Eskew, RCDD, is the founder and CEO of Automated Systems Design Inc. (ASD), which provides manufacturing, management and maintenance of nationwide custom turnkey Information Transport Systems. ASD, a five-time Inc. 500/5000 company, manufactures high-performance iCAT-ITS copper offerings, including CAT 5E, CAT 6E, and 10-gigabit CAT 6a cables, as well as iGLO-ITS fiber optic products. For details, visit www.asdusa.com.
Sources: BRISA World Structured Cabling Market Report April 2012. Accessed: http://www.bsria.co.uk/services/market-intelligence/ multi-client/cabling/. Cabling Installation and Maintenance: 10G network-gear port shipments to surpass 1G by 2014. May 1, 2012. Accessed: http://www.cablinginstall.com/index/display/article-display/3867996147/articles/cabling-installation-maintenance/ volume-20/issue-5/departments/editors-picks.html. Cabling Installation and Maintenance: U.S. Adopting Cat 6A at Less Than Half the Worldwide Rate. July 17, 2012. Accessed: http://www.cablinginstall.com/index/display/article-display/5887298825/articles/cabling-installation-maintenance/ news/network-cable/cat6a/2012/july/US-adopting-Cat-6A-athalf-worldwide-rate.html. TIA-942A data center cabling standard to recommend OM4 fiber. Cabling Installation & Maintenance. June 28, 2011. Accessed: http://www.cablinginstall.com/index/display/ article-display/6133575191/articles/cabling-installation-maintenance/news/cabling-standards/tia/2011/6/TIA-942-A-datacenter-cabling-standard-to-recommend-OM4-fiber.html.
BANDWIDTH DEMAND
Bandwidth demand is also shaping purchasing patterns in the data center industry. One of the biggest challenges facing organizations today is managing bandwidth. Data center network infrastructures are being pushed to the limit as the amount of data being transferred continues to increase exponentially. The increase in mobile devices accessing data centers is having a significant impact on bandwidth demand as well. Todays data center network infrastructures must be built with an eye toward the future to prepare for the inevitable growth of mobile-data traffic. The cable in data center network infrastructures is designed to last at least 10 years and accommodate three to four generations of electronics. As
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AFCOMs conferences, held twice each year, provide critical information that can be directly applied to everyday life in the data center. AFCOM Members receive valuable discounts on conference registrations.
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The chapter program is specifically designed to help members build relationships and learn from industry experts in their region. These local meetings are held monthly or quarterly and occur in small group settings. Members who become involved with a local chapter develop a personal network of local professionals and gain connections to new information, resources, and discussions on the latest data center opportunities and issues.
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Volume 25 | November 2012

The Data Center Industry:

Resuscitating the Legacy Data Center

is 380 Vol T DC power aVailable for mY Da T a CenTer?

The shorT answer is Yes.

Sentry Power System .

More Intelligent. More Reliable. Easier To Manage.

2012, Server Technology, Inc.

14 DATA CENTER FACILITY VENDOR PERSPECTIVES ON THE INDUSTRY

by Jeffrey R Clark, Ph.D

12 IMPROVING ENERGY EFFICIENCY IN DATA CAMPUSES

THE DATA CENTER JOURNAL

25TH PRINT EDITION

The Data Center Journal Staff

The Data Center Industry:

THE DATA CENTER JOURNAL

Plug& Play Cabling

Copyright 2012, Cablesys

Cablesys.com/pnp 800.555.7176 cs@cablesys.com www.datacenterjournal.com

THE DATA CENTER JOURNAL |

BROADER ECONOMY: UNCERTAIN

APPLES MAIDEN DATA CENTER AND ALTERNATIVE ENERGY

NSA DATA CENTER

Using Solar Energy Systems to Offset Data Center Electricity Consumption

IS SOLAR PV RIGHT FOR YOUR DATA CENTER?

DATA CENTER ELECTRICITY USAGE

SOLAR PHOTOVOLTAIC SYSTEMS: A POSSIBLE SOLUTION?

If you dont have you might as well just

PROCURING A SOLAR PV SYSTEM

PROJECT INVESTMENT VS. RISK: FINANCING STRUCTURES

THE DATA CENTER JOURNAL

T HE E ATON 9E UPS I S T HE F UTURE. A ND T HAT M AKES M E O H, N OT AGAIN.

Backup Power (UPS) The Eaton 9E UPS offers 98% efciency.

Power Management Software Optimized for virtual environments.

IT Racks Integrated airow components protect critical IT equipment.

Streamline power protection with the 98% efficient Eaton 9E UPS.

Learn more about the Eaton 9E UPS at switchon.eaton.com/datacenterjournal11

THE DATA CENTER JOURNAL |

Improving Energy Efficiency in Data Campuses

CONSIDER YOUR NATURAL ENVIRONMENT

GREENING YOUR HVAC SYSTEM

LOOK TOWARD THE LED LIGHT

THE DATA CENTER JOURNAL

Corning Cable Systems is

THE DATA CENTER JOURNAL |

2012 Corning Cable Systems LLC

Data Center Facility Vendor Perspectives on the Industry

OVERALL TRENDS FOR DATA CENTER FACILITIES

THE DATA CENTER JOURNAL

You have questions?

Tight Trunk Buffer

Belden knows ber.

One Enterprise. One Infrastructure. One Partner.

THE DATA CENTER JOURNAL |

Loose Tube Pre-Terminated

IT SPENDING: WHERES THE MONEY?

MEETING THE CHALLENGE

THE DATA CENTER JOURNAL

To learn more, visit systemsensor.com/faast.

2012 System Sensor. All Rights Reserved. 02/12

THE DATA CENTER JOURNAL |

Resuscitating the Legacy Data Center

THE DATA CENTER JOURNAL