Dynamics of Datacentres

07 October 2007

The insatiable business appetite for more powerful IT and networking resources is transforming the way in which we need to design and manage datacentres capable of adapting to our future requirements, explains George Rockett, event director of Datacenter Dynamics

FROM SOARING ENERGY COSTS and carbon reduction targets, to the impact of blade servers, the role of virtualization, grids and utility computing, rising thermal management problems, requests for more power per rack, and the need to measure, benchmark and monitor every layer of DC infrastructure, the pressure on datacentre operators to do more with less shows no sign of abating.

Now in its 6th year, DatacenterDynamics has firmly established itself as the leading gathering of Datacentre professionals in the UK and Europe dedicated to the design, build and operation of 24/7 mission critical datacentre facilities. The Conference and accompanying Expo have been designed to deliver maximum benefit to our delegates, and to bring together the leading industry experts and best-of-breed solution providers. Not only is this a valuable information gathering forum, but also an unrivalled networking opportunity. Again this year’s speaker line-up welcomes renowned industry experts from around the world including:

Mark Monroe, Director of Sustainable Computing - Sun Microsystems

John Killey, Head of Citi Realty Services EMEA – Citigroup

Philip Andrews, Data Centre for European Markets Operations Director - Cisco Systems

Don Beaty ASHRAE TC 9.9, International Chair, Neil Rasmussen, Senior Vice President & Chief Technical Officer - APC-MGE

John Wallerich, Intel Solution Services - Senior Consultant Engineer

Patrick Fogarty, Director - Norman Disney & Young

Although the schedule is primarily focused on the facilities and engineering side of the data centre, the impact that IT has on the datacenter out to the LAN closet is key to the success of many organizations. Many IT specialists have learned that they must attend and their participation has improved their understanding of the interrelationships between the FM and IT departments; and has in fact led to speedier problem solving in live situations and planning for the future. This year again we aim to highlight the commonalities, and help build a common language.

Datacenter Dynamics was Spot-On in 2006 with its focus on the key Hotspots and Issues of the industry. This year developed content in 9 main focus areas:

1. Engineering Energy Efficiency: Understanding the challenges and delivering real cost savings by taking control of ‘The Power Gap' through solutions, technologies and design alternatives. Going ‘Green' and build for BREEAM/LEED Certification.

2. Open and Closed Cooling Architectures: Cool the load and not the room as we plan and implement thermal management solutions from the cabinet to the closet through adaptive air and liquid cooling in supporting higher-density power and cooling loads.

3. High Performance Network Cabling: Capitalise on intelligent fiber and cable management standards and best practices while improving cost performance, speed, reliability and bandwidth/reach at the physical layer.

4. The DC Solution Oriented Network Architecture: Optimize your IT infrastructure and data center facilities for the application aware enterprise while increasing availability, reliability and service assurance from the DC server to the desktop.

5. Consolidation, Virtualistion and Server Resource Maximisation: Learn the value from the Chip to the BladeServer in making Grid and Utility Computing, Virtualisation and Consolidation turn your DC from a custom-built infrastructure to a plug-and-play environment designed to bring flexibility to IT and agility to the business units.

6. Modular Value Engineering and Capacity Planning: Manage the demand design modelling paradox of space, capacity and time of your facility with new concepts and best practices in design, modular build and deployments and CFD to a new level.

7. DC Automation - Mastering the 4M's: Monitoring, Measuring, Modelling and Managing the Mission Critical IT Infrastructure: ‘You can't manage what you can't measure.'

8. Business Continuity and Disaster Recovery: From the processes and best practices required to working with facility, IT and business managers to determine which parts of a facility, systems, and applications should be restored first after a disaster.

9. End-to-End Mission Critical Application and IT Resource Service Management: The need for system and application management software in today's complex mission critical environment from Service Provisioning Systems to bringing application awareness to the datacenter.'

Themes for 2007
In February this year DatacenterDynamics threw open the whole ‘Green' energy efficiency debate in the UK with its highly acclaimed Energy Summit. The need to achieve efficiency gains whilst preserving the high levels of availability and redundancy required of any mission critical operation will be the next major challenge for all data centre owner/operators.

The many contributing factors to this new scenario include energy costs, prevailing environmental policies, regulations and the demands for high reliability and resiliency which see no sign of abating, only adding to the pressure on data centre operators. This debate will be continued this November.

The use of DC power is only one approach to cutting electricity costs (see schedule for more), but will it be universally adopted? How easily can you harness free-cooling in the UK? Businesses need to consider everything from server consolidation and storage virtualisation, to more efficient cooling solutions in order to reduce their datacentre power consumption going forward.

This year's programme will look at the many approaches open both from the facilities/engineering side of the house to the IT architecture options; those available today and roadmaps to navigate the future.

New Micro-Datacentre Focus
Research conducted at last year's event highlighted the quantity of standalone data centre space at the >sub 20 rack level throughout the UK. Both as distributed sites for larger corporates, such as branch offices, or as central computing platforms for SMBs, this microdatacentre environment has design considerations of its own, which will be explored in a dedicated track over both days through a series of case studies and practical guides to include:

1. A practical guide to Power Architectures

2. A practical guide to High Density installations in challenging spaces

3. A practical guide to Micro-datacentre consolidation

Mark Monroe, Director of Sustainable Computing - Sun Microsystems

John Killey, Head of Citi Realty Services EMEA – Citigroup

Philip Andrews, Data Centre for European Markets Operations Director - Cisco Systems

Don Beaty ASHRAE TC 9.9, International Chair, DLB Associates, President

Neil Rasmussen, Senior Vice President & Chief Technical Officer - APC-MGE

John Wallerich, Intel Solution Services - Senior Consultant Engineer

Patrick Fogarty, Director - Norman Disney & Young

Link: Datacenter Dynamics