As corporate computing and storage needs continue to grow, the need to for more data center space follows. This continued escalation of demand is generating the need for customers to demand more from wholesale data center providers. In a recent series of blogs we described the new requirements for providers as being the data center industry’s version of baseball’s five-tool player. This white paper is the compilation of that series.
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Despite the fact that no clear definition of Modular Datacenters 1.0 was ever firmly established, the industry is attempting to avoid this ambiguity by proclaiming the coming of version 2.0. Although Webster’s hasn’t published a standard definition just yet, “pre-fabrication” seems to be the concept that many industry insiders view as the fundamental element of part deux. Before this terminology, formerly associated with doublewides and packaged chillers, becomes universally embraced as synonymous with modular it may be a good time to pause and reflect on whether it does represent the next phase of modular offerings.
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Mustard or ketchup? Small, medium or large? Your place or mine? Everyone likes choices. But sometimes too many choices aren’t necessarily a good thing. For example, you want to paint a room in your home so you amble down to the local paint store and tell the man behind the counter you’d like to buy some red paint. He asks, “what shade?” and proceeds to pull out that paint chip fan thing. Thirty minutes later, you’re wondering what “vermillion” looks like and are no closer to leaving with a can of paint then when you walked in. Unfortunately, this example is analogous to the data center industry today.
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IT capacity planning has long been the “Gordian Knot” for data center professionals. Trying to account for the business’ hardware and software needs, coupled with the vagaries of short and long term corporate strategies, typically makes projecting your organization’s capacity requirements an exercise akin to nailing jell-o to the wall. These efforts are hardly aided by the product offerings of data center providers who view capacity planning as a euphemism for “you need to lease your future space NOW”. This paper will examine the issues that have long characterized the process of capacity planning and explore a new alternative that serves as the metaphoric equivalent of Alexander the Great’s sword as the solution to the Gordian Knot.
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Anyone familiar with the data center industry for the past five or six years will testify to its rapid rate of growth. By any measure (number and size of facilities, revenues or the number of providers), the marketplace has expanded. This growth has helped spawn a number of technical innovations in areas such as cooling and power systems to both fuel this growth and enable customers to keep up with the physical demands necessitated by their associated data center based applications. The effect of these technological advancements is a gap between the infrastructure and the tools needed to manage them.
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When you think of the leading data center markets in the country a few cities and states immediately come to mind: New Jersey, Northern Virginia, Santa Clara California, Dallas, Texas, Jackson, Mississippi… While the capital city of the Magnolia state may seem more likely to conjure visions of mint juleps rather than rows of racks and servers, that won’t always be the case if the state’s governmental leaders have their way.
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If one were asked to describe the nature of data center offerings today they could easily paraphrase Shakespeare’s description of a rose by stating that, “a data center by any other name would still be called modular”. The plethora of competing product offerings that self-describe themselves as “modular” has led the industry to adopt a term so broad that it includes everything from fixed location buildings to offerings that would probably look most familiar to a longshoreman.
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In comparing colocation solutions versus dedicated alternatives like the Compass Truly Modular™ data center, the primary question that customers must answer is: “how much flexibility and control are they willing to sacrifice?” This consideration must be addressed when evaluating colocated environments versus a dedicated solution like the Compass Datacenter Truly Modular alternative since the definition of “dedicated” tends to be quite flexible within the colocated realm.
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Recorded version of our December 10, 2012 webinar with Schneider Electric.
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