Since 2012, the amount of electricity consumed by the IT sector has increased by six per cent (totalling 21%) in the past five years, making the need for a green data centre industry stronger than ever before. With an anticipated threefold increase in global internet traffic by 2020, the advocacy of renewable energy for data centres will be important in sustaining its growth.

“The growth in the amount of data demands that all data centre providers come together, rather than working in silos, and be clear in their use of renewable energy in creating a more sustainable industry. Whether it’s meeting government sustainability objectives, using renewable energy as secondary sources, or pushing for stronger connections with energy suppliers, it can all contribute to enhanced efforts in tackling carbon emissions.”

Roel continued: “The need for data centre providers and end users to collaborate to ensure our use of data is sustainable has never been greater. Organisations like The Green Grid are providing the space for this to happen and are developing a range of tools to make sure that our growing dependency on technology is sustainable.”

"EA practitioners must focus their business architecture efforts on defining their business strategy, which includes outlining their digital business platform's strategy*, particularly relative to a platform business model," added Ms. Burton. In addition, EA practitioners will increasingly focus on the business and technology opportunities and challenges by integrating with another organizations' digital platforms and/or by defining their own innovative digital platforms.

Digital innovation continues to transform itself, and EA needs to continuously evolve to keep pace with digital. Building on the base of business-outcome-driven EA, which emphasizes the business and the execution of the business, enterprise architects are increasingly focusing on the design side of architecture — which is at the forefront of digital innovation.

Gartner predicts that by 2018, 40 percent of enterprise architects will focus on design-driven architecture. "It allows organizations to understand the ecosystem and its actors, gaining insight into them and their behavior and developing and evolving the services they need," said Marcus Blosch, research vice president at Gartner. "Many leading platform companies, such as Airbnb and Dropbox, use design-driven approaches such as 'design thinking' to build and evolve their platforms. Going forward, design-driven and business-outcome-driven approaches are set to define leading EA practice."

However, the move to design-driven architecture has implications for people, tools and services. "We recommend that enterprise architects develop the design knowledge, skills and competencies of the EA team," concluded Mr. Blosch. "They also need to educate the business on design-driven architecture and identify an area where they can start with a design-driven architect, to not only develop innovation but also to learn, as an organization, how to do design."

Unmanageable IT                                                                                                                                                     

The pressure is certainly on for the IT department, and 50% of IT decision makers fear that they cannot drive digital transformation forward at the speed their management team expects. Combine this with the fact that 32% of employees also believe their employers are not driving digital transformation as fast as competitors are doing, and you have the ingredients for a disaster – commercially speaking.

When too much pressure is heaped on IT, the department struggles to deliver the best quality service to end users –  impeding businesses from innovating to remain competitive in their fields.

Unsurprisingly, this affects more than just the IT department and is having a knock-on effect upon the whole organisation. Nearly a third of employees (30%) confessed that new digital tools are making their jobs more difficult, while 31% said it made their roles more stressful. 

As the demand for digital continues, reining in disruptive IT has never been more critical – and those who fail to do so will risk everything from staff retention[3] and customer satisfaction, through to their very survival.

Rein IT Back In

This pace of change will not abate. With this in mind here are some top tips for a more manageable IT estate:

Seek out the right skills: Bringing in the right talent – inside and outside of the IT department – who can help drive your digital culture forward will be vital. Remember that soft skills are just as important as technical ability.

Communicate clearly: Keeping a clear and open dialogue with the wider business will not only help the IT department understand exactly where business priorities lie, but will help prevent employee and management expectations from getting out of hand.   

Secure adequate resources: Changing a company’s culture understandably requires investment. Communicating the benefits associated with digital transformation – and investing in training for those who need it – is crucial to ensure that the wider business both pays its fair share of the associated costs, and receives due positive outcomes too. 

Don’t go it alone: Turning to colleagues and tech champions outside the IT department can help drive change. Additionally, partnering with an appropriately experienced managed services provider can allow the IT department to focus on delivering new, innovative services, rather than getting waylaid by small, fiddly system maintenance tasks, or overwhelmed by the changes undertaken.

Perhaps one of the biggest mistakes lies with the connotations that are associated with the term ‘digital transformation’. Many have made the mistake of thinking it should be an all-encompassing overhaul; but a revolution doesn’t come out of nowhere, it can be built upon one step at a time. By aligning IT to business outcomes, you then use it to create new opportunities, create better working practices, and ultimately improve the competitive strength of your business.

The renowned American poet, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, once wrote: “In character, in manner, in style, in all things, the supreme excellence is simplicity”. Too often, people associate simplicity with a lack of ambition and accomplishment. In fact, it’s the key to unlocking a great deal of power in business.  Steve Jobs once said you can move mountains with ‘simple’.

Over the years, technology has progressed by getting simpler rather than more complex. However, this doesn’t mean the back-end isn’t complicated. Rather, a huge amount of work goes into creating an intuitive user experience. Consider Microsoft Word: every time you type, transistors switch on or off and voltage changes take place all over computer and storage mediums. You only see the document, but a lot of technical wizardry is happening in the background.

Extracting meaningful value from data depends on three disciplines: data engineering, business knowledge and data visualisation. To achieve all three, you need a team of super humans who can code in their sleep, have a nose for business, an expansive knowledge of their industry and adjacent industries, supreme mathematical genii and excellent management and communication skills. Or, you have technology that can abstract all these challenges and create a platform layer which does most of the computations in the background.

However, there is a caveat. Even if you eschew complexity and embrace a simplified data platform, you still need data savvy people. These data scientists won’t have to train for three years to memorise the finer points of Hadoop, but they will need to understand Big Data challenges.

There are companies which provide the method and points businesses in the right direction, but they still need to uncover what questions to ask, and what kind of answers to expect. How businesses can equip themselves with the right skills for the job is an extremely important issue to consider.

Big data successes 

While Big Data projects may stall, or fail for any of the above reasons, we are starting to see more “succeed and transform” businesses, mainly thanks to the huge strides in stripping out complexity in the front-end through layer technology.

Let’s take the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority, Inc. (FINRA), a private self-regulatory organisation (SRO) and the largest independent regulator for all US-based securities firms. Thanks to the methods I was referencing earlier, the financial watchdog has been able to find the right ‘needles’ in their growing data ‘haystack’. Analysts can now access any data in FINRA’s multi-petabyte data lake to identify trading violations – in an automated fashion making the process 10 to 100 times faster: this means a difference of seconds vs. hours!

FINRA achieved simplicity and more control of its data as a result. It ordered brokerages to return an estimated €90 million in funds, obtained through misconduct during 2015 which was nearly three times the 2014 total. 

Big Data projects don’t have to confound and confuse. They can bring breakthrough lightbulb moments, provided they’re grounded in simplicity. Let the technology do the difficult stuff – in all else, keep it simple.

Key takeaways

Since its inception in 2011, the OCP ecosystem has grown to 198 official members. OCP hardware deployments, however, have been primarily in hyperscale environments – Facebook, Microsoft and Google – and a handful of large financial institutions. The maturity of OCP hardware and vendor support was evident at the event, with a vendor show floor that was easily twice the size of last year's.

At this year's Summit, Facebook and Microsoft made significant announcements, while Google was notably quiet (and absent from the keynote roster). Google joined the OCP a year ago, and has since shared its 48V rack designs with the community – a higher voltage than the 'traditional' 12V OCP designs.

A focus of the 2017 Summit was on networking components, as well as the software stacks running OCP gear. A panel discussion highlighted the need for greater interoperability between, for example, network operating systems, software-defined storage, OpenStack and Linux.

One of the major announcements at the Summit was Microsoft's support of ARM-based servers integrating chips from Cavium and Qualcomm (and others) into its OCP-designed servers. While ARM-based servers have been around for some time (with little traction), support by Microsoft presents a significant threat to Intel's monopoly in the world of server processors. Microsoft also announced it will integrate AMD's new x86 server chip, Naples, which is shipping in 2Q 2017. (Look for a separate 451 Research report that delves deeper into the ARM and AMD, versus Intel, server chip battle.)

Microsoft ported its Windows Server operating system to run on 64-bit ARM processors, and is strategically testing the ARM servers for specific (not all) workloads – primarily for cloud services. This includes its Bing search engine, big-data analytics, storage and machine learning. This is significant, because Microsoft claims that these workloads make up nearly half of its cloud datacenter capacity. Microsoft noted that the ARM-based version of Windows Server will not be available externally.

The ARM-based servers are part of Microsoft's Project Olympus platform (first announced in November 2016), which includes OCP designs for a universal motherboard, a universal rack power distribution unit, power supply and batteries, and rack management card. Project Olympus is a new development model whereby designs are 50% complete by intention, and shared with the OCP community for collaboration and to speed innovation. Intel and AMD are also working with Microsoft to have their newest processors (respectively, Skylake and Naples) included as part of the Project Olympus specifications.

At the Summit, Facebook introduced a full refresh of its OCP portfolio, introduced a seventh OCP server type, and updated its software stack. The new Type VIII server combines two systems – the Tioga Pass dual-socket server and the Lightning storage (JBOF) – to maximize shared flash storage across servers. Its next-generation storage platform, Bryce Canyon, is designed for handling high-density storage (photos and videos) and can support up to 72 hard disk drives in a 4-OpenU chassis.

Facebook also updated its Big Sur GPU server to Big Basin using the latest generation GPU processors, and increased its memory from 12GB to 16GB, allowing it to train machine-learning models that are 30% larger compared to its predecessor. Other refreshes included the Yosemite v2 server (four single-socket compute nodes) and Wedge 100S top-of-rack network switch.

In the storage space, NetApp announced it is offering a software-only version of its ONTAP operating system, ONTAP Select, for use with OCP storage hardware in a private cloud. IBM also released its Spectrum Scale storage software for OCP. These enterprise storage operating systems are now unbundled, and bolster the software-defined storage stack that had been missing in OCP.

A new online OCP Marketplace was launched where products can be reviewed and sourced by the community. Last year, an incubation committee was established that developed two designations: OCP Accepted (full hardware design specifications that are contributed to the OCP community) and OCP Inspired (designs that hold true to an existing OCP specification).

The marketplace currently lists 70 OCP products that are ready to purchase. We believe this is a positive initial step in aggregating available OCP-based hardware in one location, but more curating and certification may be needed to resolve some of the enterprise challenges in OCP hardware procurement.

Key DCT announcements

Schneider Electric, one of the leading datacenter technologies suppliers, and Microsoft announced their co-engineering of a universal rack power distribution unit (UPDU), a unique component of Project Olympus. The UPDU is based on a single PDU reference design along with multiple adapter options to accommodate varying alternating current standards and input power ratings (amps, phases and voltages) across different geographies, as well as different rack densities. The goal is to simplify global procurement, inventory management and deployment.

Also at the datacenter facilities level, was the announcement from Intel that it is working with VPS to develop software-defined power monitoring and management. We believe the broader datacenter industry will increasingly move toward the use of software-driven power management, enabling greater efficiencies and utilization.

This is not a new approach, but one that has been slow to take off – Intel's support may help to change that. Intel is integrating VPS's software with its Rack Scale Design open APIs to enable power availability where needed on-demand, as well as peak shaving among other functions. Intel and VPS have committed to contributing the specification to OCP.

What's next?

The leading OCP server manufacturers (ODMs), Quanta Cloud Technology and Wiwynn, are assessing more integrated OCP rack offerings, in a bid to simplify the procurement process. But in our view, they still need to develop stronger channel and distributor relationships to get closer to resembling the traditional supply chain.

A number of systems integrators at the event shared a common strategic mandate to fulfill the intermediary role between enterprise and non-hyperscale buyers and the OCP supply chain. The availability of OCP-compliant space at colocation providers is likely to also be an enabler. Equinix, the largest colocation supplier by revenue, joined the OCP in January, including the OCP Telco Project that launched a year ago (and has since grown from 20 to over 100 participants).

At the Summit, Equinix announced that it would adopt OCP hardware at its International Business Exchange datacenters to support certain infrastructure services. Equinix discussed with 451 Research its broader intent to support – and in some cases, help facilitate via interoperability testing – OCP adoption among its customers and partners. This could include the top 10 cloud providers, plus hundreds of smaller cloud customers. Equinix's broader OCP strategy will be discussed in greater detail in a forthcoming report.

Several other colocation providers are also paving the way for OCP inside their facilities. Aegis Data made OCP-compliant space available in its HPC-designed datacenter outside of London and, along with Hyperscale IT (a hardware reseller and integrator) and DCPro Development (datacenter training), stood up OCP hardware and held an awareness course in February.

CS Squared, a datacenter consultant, opened an OCP lab in a Volta colo datacenter in London (mirroring Facebook's Disaggregated Lab in California). More recently, the Dutch colo Switch Datacenters announced a data hall in one of its Amsterdam facilities that is suitable for Open Rack systems.

In reality, the 'end to end' service offerings available today for the non-hyperscale buyers of OCP hardware, from procurement to maintenance and support, are still a work in progress. It is moving forward and evolving but, in our opinion, is still too onerous or complicated for most.

Further investment and a concerted effort from the ODMs, integrators, colos and others in the supply chain will be required. But once the issues around procurement, testing and support are fully resolved, it could be a tipping point for broader non-hyperscale OCP adoption. 

Jeffrey Fidacaro is a Senior Analyst in the Datacenter Technologies and Eco-Efficient IT practices at 451 Research

What was Asda's challenge?

As a retailer committed to “exceeding customer needs”, Asda wanted to go beyond offering affordable goods to their customers and provide a new service that would bring convenience to their daily lives. 

The answer was toyou, an innovative end-to-end parcel solution. The service takes advantage of Asda’s extensive logistics and retail network enabling consumers to return or collect purchases from third-party online retailers across its stores, petrol forecourts and Click & Collect points. This now meaning, a consumer who buys a non-grocery product from another retailer, is able to pick it up or return the item at an Asda store rather than wait for home or office delivery. 

In order to implement the service, Asda required a far more agile warehouse and supply chain management system. This new system needed to be hosted off-site so that there was no reliance on a single store or team.

Why did Asda choose CenturyLink's platform?

“We were launching a new service, in a new field, on a scale we had never undertaken before. We needed a pedigree IT solutions provider that could support the full scale of our full end-to-end implementation, so CenturyLink stood out to us,” explains Paul Anastasiou, Senior Director toyou in Asda.

Despite the scale of the project, Asda could not risk putting extra pressure on their existing legacy IT system – a seamless and secure transition was required. In addition to this, as a brand dedicated to making goods and services more affordable to customers, keeping costs low as the business model expanded was crucial. As such, Asda chose to outsource the administration of the operating system and application licenses to manage costs.

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Flipping the Script

The cloud breeds complexity, which limits visibility. So what’s the solution for multi-cloud companies that need the best of both worlds? Think of it like this: While server-side monitoring tools can capture data from all attached devices, they’re naturally frustrated by the cloud “gap” which exists between on-premises and off-site solutions. What’s more, using centralised data collection automatically puts IT teams behind the curve. For instance end-users experiencing network problems or engaging in risky behaviour — such as the use of unsanctioned cloud applications — often don’t wait around for logs and error reports to reach the IT desk. They frequently try to find their own solution, ask a colleague or download another app. It makes sense therefore to start by looking at end-users first.

Companies are now turning to real user monitoring (RUM) solutions which collect data and metrics at the end-user level directly and in real-time, allowing them to effectively “flip the script” of traditional monitoring techniques. According to the same survey, 77 percent of IT managers believe implementing RUM solutions would be “very effective” or “generally effective” at solving end-user monitoring challenges.

The Analytics Advantage

So why the big push for hybrid analytics? Why are companies adopting the cloud so focused on this outcome? The simple answer is data. By adopting hybrid and multiple cloud models, businesses have access to virtually limitless data sources — but this same abundance also creates a natural “blind spot” for IT infrastructure, forcing companies to choose between reduced complexity and better analytics or large-scale cloud adoption and limited big data efficacy. But the emergence of flexible, RUM-based tools may suggest a way for companies to increase their visibility without losing their edge: services, costs and end-users are monitored in real-time — even as the data they provide is used to improve analytics outcomes.

While it is simply unacceptable to be complacent when it comes to cybersecurity, there still seems to be some confusion among many organisations when it comes to their perceived level of security and actual cyber-readiness. In fact last year, an IT Security study found that only 55 percent of UK government organisations have an IT budget dedicated to security solutions, which just isn’t enough. This lack of commitment is especially worrying with the increasing amount of attacks across vital industry sectors – such as energy, water, telecoms, financial services, transport, defence and government – commonly referred to as Critical National Infrastructure (CNI). So where do investments in security need to be made?

A critical problem

While these type of threats and attack are not new by any means, an increasing amount of CNI continues to move online and more devices are connecting to networks with questionable levels of security. Previously, the Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition (SCADA) architecture in these CNI systems were isolated from the outside world and therefore more difficult for hackers to infiltrate. However, now attackers don’t need to expend nearly as much energy to hack CNI organisations , as the proliferation of the internet in this sector has made their networks much more accessible. One of many examples of the impact of an attack on CNI was seen in Ukraine in December 2015 where the electricity grid was taken down by a cyber-attack, affecting nearly a quarter of a million citizens. It doesn’t take a vivid imagination to envisage how an attack to a country’s construction, finance, telecoms, transport, or utilities systems could have devastating consequences. Unfortunately, despite companies’ best defences, increasingly organised hackers are not only getting through, they are staying hidden and undetected on networks for longer.

Organisations and security vendors must avoid complacency and instead fight smarter to identify, isolate and eliminate cyber threats faster. Companies need to constantly examine the way that their data security models are deployed and managed and ensure they are fit for purpose.

The issue with the traditional

There are inherent issues in trying to stem the rise in attacks on CNI systems, and that problem goes back to the fundamentals of the security model itself. The traditional way in which organisations had set up their security model has led to cybersecurity systems that are simply inadequate at addressing the level of cyber breaches that organisations face today.

It seems that for a while, in order to keep out hackers, the main focus was to bolster their perimeters. There was the simplistic assumption of what was outside the perimeter was unsafe and what was inside considered secure. That perimeter security typically consisted of a firewall at the internet edge and endpoint security software such as an antivirus solution, at the user end. However, most of the perimeter firewalls and endpoint security software solutions leverage rules and signatures to identify malware. Today, many of the cyber breaches exploit zero-day vulnerabilities: vulnerabilities that have been detected but a patch for it does not yet exist in various pieces of software. Consequently, it is increasingly difficult for traditional perimeter-based solutions to prevent malware and threats from breaking in. Ultimately, this means hackers are by-passing perimeters and staying on networks.

Another aspect of the original model was a high reliance on employee trust; employees were considered trustworthy while everyone else was a threat. However, many offices now have employees who use personal computing devices, such as smartphones for business use, or  their work force consists of more than just employees, but also consultants, contractors, and suppliers all needing to access the network and IT resources. This creates multiple points of entry for potential hackers and makes the simple trust model unrealistic, as the threat could just as easily come from within.

Furthermore, security appliances were deployed at fixed locations. Typically, these would assume a fixed perimeter or a set of fixed “choke” points at which traffic was expected to traverse and be monitored for threats. However, with the advancement of IoT, BYOD, and the general mobility of users and their devices, the predictability of traffic patterns and these fixed “choke” points has diminished. Additionally, the adoption of the cloud has blurred the edge and perimeter boundaries. This is making the workplace a far more dynamic environment with far less predictability on where the boundaries and choke points lie. Consequently, the ability to consistently and comprehensively identify all threats based on the static deployment of security appliances at fixed locations has been severely impaired.

Despite these issues, and the fact that cybercriminals are becoming much more sophisticated in their approach, many organisations are still using traditional security architectures to prevent network breaches. Criminals have set their sights on bigger targets with much greater fall out. Today’s threats are far stealthier, more sophisticated and destructive at an industrial scale. Many of them are grouped under an umbrella called Advanced Persistent Threats (APT), named so as they compromise the network and take up residence there for lengthy periods of time, and are the source of many of the recent large scale breaches.

A much needed security solution

Modern security strategies have to be forged on the assumption that breaches are inevitable. In other words, there must be a growing emphasis on detection and containment of breaches from within, in addition to prevention of breaches. Since the network is the primary medium that bridges the physical, virtual and cloud environments, network traffic is becoming increasingly critical for its role in providing the window to the enterprise for malware and threats. Organisations need to have persistent visibility to analyse network traffic for threats, anomalies, and lateral movement of malware. There needs to be a structured platform-based approach that delivers traffic visibility for a multitude of security appliances in a scalable, pervasive, and cost effective manner. Such a platform would deliver visibility into the lateral movement of malware, accelerate the detection of exfiltration activity, and could significantly reduce the overhead, complexity and costs associated with such security deployments.

With the current threat landscape including industrialised and well-organised cyber threats on a national level, it is no longer sufficient to focus on the security applications exclusively. Focusing on how those solutions get deployed and how they get consistent access to relevant data is a critical piece of the solution. A security delivery platform in this sense is a foundational building block of any cyber security strategy.

The changing cyber security conditions are driving a need for a fundamental shift in security. As organisations accept the inevitability of network breaches, their focus should shift to security architectures that detect malware and threats within the organisation, and respond to mitigate risk. Doing this requires far deeper insight and far greater coverage across the infrastructure than traditionally feasible and consequently a new model for deploying security solutions. This model must have pervasive reach and insight into the network and equips organisations to better protect themselves against the hackers that have raised the stakes. 

Location, location and location 

“Location dogma” is an axiom, which real estate professionals are being told and tell themselves throughout their careers – from university benches to the meetings of highest level concerning millions worth deals. Old but true – choice of location may either present an excellent ground base for a successful project or depreciate and void earlier made efforts and preparations. 

Search of location for a data center may be considered on two levels: country level and regional level. Location on both levels should fulfill certain criteria: sufficient energy and fiber network supply, physical safety and data security, and cost efficiency. Important to note, that all aforementioned aspects play a vital role and should be satisfied entirely without compromising. Additional criteria may include availability of renewable (green) energy and other sustainable solutions, availability of educated workforce and, tax or investment related incentives. 

An investment decision can be made either based solely on country level i.e. when data center operator /investor decides to locate data center in a certain country and then starts looking for sites, or, which from practical experience is more often, decision is made at the same time both about the country and a specific land site. 

Cost efficiency runs like a golden thread through all the criteria - data industry is first of all business and business is about profitability. Biggest share of the costs in data centers belongs to the consumption of electric energy. Prices of electricity on country level are annually compared by statistical office Eurostat (for the European Union), which publishes information on its website. Market players themselves also put a huge effort in minimizing costs of energy, one way or another. For instance, in Nordic countries colder climate plays a role of natural cooling which makes it possible to reduce the amount of energy for cooling. Another possibility is to utilize waste heat produced by data centers by selling it to district heating systems. Such experience has been successfully implemented in data centers in Finland and is gradually becoming a new sustainable industrial standard. For instance, data center in Finland with capacity of 6 MW may sell around 3,6 MW of heat, which warms 5 000 private houses in the area.

A third option for reducing costs might be the usage of alternative sources of energy, variety of which is available nowadays, from natural gas to sea water, from wind turbines to solar panels. From construction perspective energy costs could be reduced by installing of efficient cooling systems and other engineering solutions, as well as by providing life-cycle maintenance services for data centers.

To take a small step backwards, worth saying, that electric energy should not be only costefficient, but first of all it should just be – available, reliable, and affordable. Availability and reliability of electricity is regulated on a national level – for instance in Finland, public limited liability company Fingrid (major shareholder is the state), is responsible for power system and according to the latest published information, electric grid covers 100% of the country and in year 2016 was 99,99985 % reliable. Availability in practice means also possibility to get access to the electric grid with minimum costs and time spent.  

Fiber network supply is provided by telecommunication companies operating in the area. Companies can be of different scale, operating either on national or regional level. Data centers operators and investors have different objectives and preferences, based on which they make choice of specific operator, so the general principle would be “variety is the key” or the more providers are available in the area, the better. 

Safety and security is another cornerstone of data center both as a concept and as a big practical aspect to consider. Safety and security may refer to cyber security i.e. protection of the information kept in the data center and involves also aspect of physical safety i.e. internal and external protection and safe location. On country level cyber security is being guaranteed by national legislation, therefore it is important to pay attention in which cases information may be retrieved and on which terms. For example, in Finland privacy of data is ensured by the legislation in a way that access to the third party’s data may be granted even to the official authorities only against a court decision. Physical safety on country level relates mostly to natural environment. Floods, volcanoes, tsunamis, hurricanes, tornadoes. Check school geography study book and name any natural disaster. Data center location shall be free of the aforementioned with almost zero tolerance. 

Political environment may be also considered as an element of the safety aspect. In times of overall social and economic turbulence and instability healthy political environment becomes a significant argument to consider a stable and reliable country as a good investment target, especially in such sensitive and confidential business as data industry.

Speaking of a specific land site level, similar aspects should be considered. In addition to that, on a regional level may be mentioned such risks as forest fires, flight paths’ location, proximity of hazardous industries, sometimes even proximity of bigger cities or natural sources of water (e.g. large river). 

The right approach to the construction process helps to mitigate physical risks. Preliminary analysis of groundwater and soil, usage of endurable and high-end construction materials, installation of surveillance and alarm systems, back up procedures and other protective measures enable a safer and more secure data center. Digital construction technologies such as VDC (Virtual Design & Construction) enables to visualize and estimate entire construction process already at design phase and then closely manage and evaluate performance (including need of possible changes) during the execution phase.

Additional criteria to consider are availability of alternative sources of energy, sustainable solutions, educated workforce in the area, tax or investment related incentives on country or regional level.  

All mentioned criteria may be characterized as more or less objective factors, which is possible to measure, calculate or estimate in some way. There is however more subjective parameters worth taking into investment consideration, and probably most essential of which is finding right partners for the project. If there has to be a human factor (or “partner” factor in the case), better to make it a successful one and get the most possible benefit from the cooperation. Let’s take a closer look, what kind of partnering will ensure successful implementation of data center project.

Dream TEAM: Together Everyone Achieves More

Construction of a data center brings together specialists and experts from different fields, making the project process quite complicated and multi-sided. Just to mention a few participants: investor (who either may combine roles of owner, operator, tenant or each participates as an independent party), general contractor, regional and country authorities, energy providers, owner of the land, architects, designers, consultants, subcontractors. And others – not maybe exactly construction of Tower of Babel, but in practice somewhat similar. Execution of the project in a foreign country increases overall level of risk and possible uncertainty. 

From general contractor’s practical experience in similar major projects, a solution to this situation would be to accumulate interests and capabilities of all the parties in a partnering cooperation. Dream team is a team, where individual success is ensured by pursuing common targets in the first place and achieved by coming to the win-win decisions. General contractor in this scheme takes position of a leader of the project, who brings together, facilitates and ensures cooperation between the participants. This will enable offering the client a complete and ready-to-go project package, which includes land plot, pre-negotiated agreements with energy suppliers and authorities, expert project team and variable technical solutions, consulting, marketing and other supporting services.

As a rewarding result of this construction business model will be a turn-key data center project, which has been tailor-designed and built according to the client’s specifications. Throughout the project the general contractor will be the partner for the client and direct contact, who is capable of managing and answering arising questions and satisfy client’s needs either by itself or with other parties’ involvement. 

Conclusion

Being a recovering perfectionist, the author of the article is tempted to conclude with recommendation of “Aim high, dream big and never settle for less”. However, planned and done is much better than perfect and non-existing. So look for the right team and partners, consider objectives, smartly evaluate risks and opportunities and … just get started.

About NCC. Our vision is to renew our industry and provide superior sustainable solutions. NCC is one of the leading companies in the Nordics within construction, infrastructure and property development, with sales of SEK 53 billion and 17,000 employees in 2016. The NCC share is listed on NASDAQ Stockholm. More about NCC Data Center concept www.ncc.group/datacenter  www.ncc.fi/datacenter  

Chief Data Officers (CDOs) set strategies for governance programmes, related employee trainings, and bridge the gap between IT and business units. Ultimately, given the greater demand to manage data for new users, the CDO works to minimize the risk of contaminated data leaking into business reports.  

Reconciling IT and business with clean, actionable data

Oftentimes, the CDO position is overlooked or undervalued when businesses plan to increase BI initiatives. While this is a common mistake, it can be a costly one as well. If an organisation’s data becomes corrupted, then it is of no value – data must be trusted and verified to be useful. Each team or department at an organisation has its own needs for using this data, and traditionally the IT department focused on managing data. However, as more business users interact with data on their own, and as self-service options continue to grow, the likelihood of data corruption increases significantly with each added user into an environment.  

Contaminated data – what’s the risk?

Democratising data has its risks, as minor inconsistencies introduced into data sets can have exponential effects across multiple departments. Inconsistencies rapidly multiply as users unknowingly introduce unverified information with colleagues, clients, and others outside the organisation. Complications originate from issues with ownership, data collection processes, or technology standardisation.

An employee who corrupts company data often does so with no intent, but rather because of a lack of technical knowledge or training. Without even knowing they’ve caused an issue, the data they’ve contaminated can lead to excessive consumption of company resources, increased maintenance costs, and distorted results that end with painful decisions.

‘Reverse engineering’ irrelevant, out-of-date, or erroneous data is a tedious, time-consuming process. It provides an opportunity for the competition to jump ahead because your company resources are diverted to cleaning and restoring data to its pre-contaminated state. To avoid the many pitfalls associated with data contamination, here are five tips to help organisations get data quality and data governance right.

Tip 1 - Implement an established data governance framework

A governance framework sets the parameters for data management and usage, creates guided processes for resolving data issues, and enables businesses to make decisions based on high-quality data. Building this foundation of trust is essential for any organisation that looks to obtain precise insight and business value from data assets. But implementing a data governance framework isn't easy and there isn’t a one-size-fits-all approach. It must be customised according to each organisation to effectively allow collaboration between business and IT departments.

Tip 2 – Identify and appoint key team stakeholders

To effectively manage a governance framework, new roles are being created at varying levels within organisations. These data stewards are critical in curating data and fostering communication between teams. To communicate effectively, each business unit should designate representatives who engage in routine cross-team dialogue aimed at keeping everyone in the organisation on the same page. It is the stakeholders’ responsibility to ensure that their team adheres to established processes.

Tip 3 - Establish direct communication between IT and business

The primary factor in ensuring successful adoption of data-driven initiatives is the partnership between business and IT according to the New Vantage Partners 2016 Big Data Executive Survey. Open communication and collaboration works to ensure that everyone’s data needs are met. Transparency from both sides is key, and while the analytics platform may be able to provide monitoring capabilities to help bridge that gap, the technology itself can only take you so far. To be more effective, governance processes need to be fluid and open, and IT needs to continuously monitor and prioritise how they promote essential measuring tools into a governed framework.

Tip 4 - Make sure the most effective data management technology is in place

The easiest part of the process is choosing the right technology and putting it into the hands of both business and IT users. Technology should enable business teams to control the 'who, what, where, when, and why' of data entry – allowing access to information that pertains to them. It should also enable collaboration across the organisation to break down existing data silos.

Tip 5 – Start with small steps

Data governance cannot be created or fixed overnight. With business needs frequently changing, it takes a continual process of identifying gaps, prioritising applications, and promoting assets, so it’s good to start with small steps.  As with any initiative, getting buy-in from key personnel is a crucial first step. The entire organisation needs to recognise the value of having an enterprise-wide data governance initiative—whether it’s through standardised technology, systematic reviews, or appointing data stewards.

The next step is to identify and start with an organisation’s most important application. Try to certify or promote a single application each month, and by year’s end, you’re your organisation will have data governance covering twelve critical applications.

Final thoughts

As BI adoption becomes more pervasive, and employees increasingly access and interact with data, an effective data governance programme is more critical than ever before. It ensures that a single version of the truth is maintained across all departments of an organisation – protecting the data’s integrity and credibility.

Investing in employee education is a key element to consider when deploying data governance. Preventative measures and early investments work to minimise the likelihood of eventual mistakes or oversights that could damage credibility. Once the right technology is in place and being used correctly, applying a data governance framework will keep a business poised to reap the benefits and gain a competitive edge in today’s climate of continual change and disruption.  

By some estimates, the amount of data in the world is doubling every two years and consequently the global energy consumption of data centres is increasing by 20% annually. The share of the world’s generated electricity consumed by data centres has risen from 0.5% ten years ago to 3% today, with some expecting the proportion to rise to 25% in 20 years time.  Financial pressure, regulations and corporate social responsibility (CSR) demand data centre operators to stay focussed on improving efficiency.

Software control of both the IT equipment and the supporting infrastructure such as cooling, security and power backup systems has long been a fundamental tool for monitoring and managing both operational and energy efficiency. Such tools will become increasingly important, and increasingly integrated, in the future. Furthermore, they will make use of the most cutting-edge advances in software technology, including artificial intelligence (AI), to meet the challenges posed by the critical importance of energy efficiency.

Apart from the IT equipment itself, the biggest consumer of power in any data centre is its cooling system. Vital to maintaining operating temperatures at acceptable levels, cooling is nevertheless a major drain on the energy required by a data centre and much effort is now expended in organising it efficiently.

Data centres are now designed from the outset to facilitate the most efficient cooling with careful attention being paid to the choice of cooling equipment for the facility as a whole, the design and alignment of the IT equipment racks to enable the optimum air flows for maintaining efficient operating temperatures and the containment of those racks so that hot and cold air streams are separated to avoid unnecessary duplication of cooling effort. 

Perhaps most critical of all is the ongoing monitoring and control of the data centre’s operations so that adjustments can be made in response to inevitable changes in the operating environment. Variations in ambient or external temperature, a sudden change in the IT operating load, the addition or removal of equipment racks, or even the failure of some elements of the cooling apparatus all effect the cooling effort that is needed to maintain optimum performance.

A particular challenge is that often the most appropriate measure to take in response to localised rises in temperature may be counter intuitive. Take for instance the case of a design based around an air-cooled packaged chiller. If the IT temperature set point is increased and the chilled water temperature is increased, the chiller energy decreases for two reasons. First, the data centre can operate in economiser mode for a greater portion of the year and secondly, the chiller efficiency increases.

However if the  computer room air handler (CRAH) supply air temperature is not increased proportionally to the chilled water temperature, the cooling capacity of the CRAH decreases and the CRAH fans need to spin up to compensate. This in turn increases the energy consumption of the CRAH. Furthermore, the dry cooler energy increases because the number of economiser hours increases.

Clearly the task of cooling an IT room is a complex and demanding one and requires consideration of several tradeoffs between the demands placed on various elements of the cooling system. It requires the adoption of a holistic approach to the cooling of a data centre considering all aspects of the load, support infrastructure and surrounding environment. 

There have long been software tools to assist in the management of all aspects of a data centre’s operation. Systems management software from leading IT vendors allows operators to monitor issues like server performance, disk utilisation and network traffic congestion. In a foreshadowing of the Internet of Things, embedded processing elements on individual pieces of equipment warn give notice of servicing and update schedules and warn of potential malfunctions.

Separate from systems management software suites, Data Centre Infrastructure Management (DCIM) systems assist in the management of supporting infrastructure such as cooling and backup power supply systems. Facilities Management software, like Building and Energy Management systems (BEMS), assists in the monitoring of building or site-level functions such as air conditioning and electricity supply.

As energy management becomes ever more critical, given the growth in data-centre facilities, it will be necessary for all of these systems to work more closely together. Given the complexity of managing all of these systems, self-learning systems or artificial intelligence (AI) will increasingly be deployed in the quest for efficiency.

Such systems are already in place in some established DCIM software suites. For example Schneider Electric’s Cooling Optimize tool, part of its own StruxureWare suite uses an intelligent algorithm that learns how cooling works in the data centre it is monitoring and automatically makes adjustments to elements of the cooling system in accordance with changes in the IT load. In this way it helps to achieve the optimal trade off between using sufficient energy to ensure adequate cooling without using too much and thereby reducing efficiency. 

Elsewhere, some innovative startups are using intelligent machines with self-learning algorithms to optimise the allocation of the IT load itself so that optimal cooling can be achieved. Load-balancing systems are already a familiar feature of systems management software suites, but their focus is on ensuring an equitable distribution of resources from the point of view of maximising the available IT capacity in a data centre. The new software tools also take account of the effect of loads on the cooling requirements so that the energy implications can be factored into decisions.

The self-learning elements make calculations based on a number of factors including the times of the day, or indeed the year, when spikes in the load can be expected and calculate how such increased loads can be allocated across resources so that overall system and electrical efficiency can be maximised.

The combination of greater integration between the various management-software systems and the use of machine learning will help to reduce energy consumption, maximise hardware efficiency and provide greater visibility of system utilisation to data centre management. The latter feature is important especially in colocation and cloud environments from the point of view of ensuring agreed service levels to each customer.

There are of course other innovative efforts in place to help reduce power consumption in data centres. This includes research into new basic computing elements to replace silicon, especially as the venerable Moore’s Law, which predicts the regular achievement of ever more powerful computing performance from ever smaller amounts of silicon, approaches its physical limits. Such promising developments as quantum computing, superconducting cold logic and optical computing are all being investigated but for the foreseeable future we will still be building servers and data centres around silicon chips. 

The better we manage such systems, taking into account all important factors including performance and energy efficiency, the more productive our data centres will be. Integration between management software systems, assisted by artificial intelligence, will be key to that. 

Despite the technical advancement in many power generation technologies, a reciprocating engine still remains the only solution capable of meeting emergency power supply requirements. But such an engine does not have to run on diesel fuel anymore – now there is a cleaner and more economically effective alternative: natural gas.

Industrial reciprocating engines running on natural gas are not a new concept. Early machines of this type were used at the beginning of the 20th century, but those were huge, bulky, low-speed machines with nothing in common with modern agile and flexible units. The development of gas engine technology as we know it today started somewhere in the 1980s. In the 1990s, it was already becoming quite popular in local distributed power generation, as it attained efficiency levels impossible to match for any other small-scale technology. In the early years of the 21st century gas engine technology advanced further, earning an important place in a modern power system. Compared to other fuel-based technologies used in large-scale commercial power industry, gas engines are fast to start, cheap to build and extremely flexible. This led to widespread use in the role of intermediate-load or peaking power stations all over the world, not only in distributed generation, but in fairly large power plants as well: the largest engine power plant to date has an installed capacity of around 600 MW.

Yet until quite recently gas engines had a major flaw compared to diesels: the starting time. While ten minutes – the state of the art just a few years ago – is very impressive in the world of commercial power generation and faster than any other technology except diesel or hydro, for an emergency power generation system this would be way too slow. In fact, this is more than ten times slower than any decent emergency diesel generator.

However, during recent years, huge progress has been made in this area. In general, the increasingly volatile electricity markets have forced equipment vendors to improve the flexibility of all power generation technologies, but in case of the gas engines the progress has been perhaps the most impressive. Over just a few years, standard series-built medium-speed gas engines had their start-up times reduced from ten minutes to just two. This was still longer than diesel, but the difference was no longer an order of magnitude. And even this has been further reduced by now. Recent development and testing by Wärtsilä has conclusively demonstrated that state-of-the-art gas engines may be started and brought to full power in considerably less than one minute of the starting order, which brings them within the world of emergency power supply. 

Cleanest of All Fossil Fuels 

Therefore, now and finally, diesel engines have an alternative as a source of backup power. However, adopting gas goes far beyond just providing a different equivalent solution. Natural gas is the cleanest of all fossil fuels. First of all, using gas means less CO₂. This is an inherent feature of natural gas as a fuel. The higher hydrogen-to-carbon ratio in its constituent compounds means that the exhaust gas contains less carbon dioxide and more climate-neutral water vapor. When combined with high efficiency of modern industrial gas engines (which is among the highest of all power generation technologies and higher than the diesel engines currently used for emergency power generation), this means that using electricity generated by gas engines has a considerably lower carbon footprint than using diesel-generated power. In fact, the carbon footprint is much lower than that of grid electricity in most countries. This means, operating the generating sets continuously instead of relying on grid would have a positive effect on the carbon footprint of the data center.

Of course emissions are not only about CO₂. However, nitrogen oxide emissions from gas engines are also considerably lower than from diesels, and there is practically no emission of sulfur oxides (as natural gas contains no sulfur) or particulate matter (again – no sources in fuel). All this, combined with the fact that in majority of the markets the cost of natural gas allows its use for commercial power generation, means that gas engines installed at a data center would not be limited to emergency power generation and could actually start earning money.

Wärtsilä’s State-of-the-art power plants – Solution for the Future 

Recent developments in gas engine technology, combined with advent of liquefied natural gas solutions, make gas engines a viable option for the emergency power supply of data centers. At the same time, the robustness of this technology, low emissions, high efficiency and affordable fuel prices make such a solution suitable for much more than just providing backup for rare cases of grid failure. The solution of Wärtsilä described in this article allows data center operators to replace the necessary cost of technical insurance against grid failures into a pro table component of their business. At the same time, it will reduce the environmental footprint of their facility, both on global (carbon emissions) and local (particulate matter, nitrogen oxides) levels.

Most commentators agree that we are in the midst of a digital revolution. Data will play an important role in the world of business, and over time, competitive benefits will accrue for businesses that can effectively use data to their advantage. Data volumes continue to grow exponentially, with 40 zettabytes expected to be created by 2020. Despite the wealth of opportunity that this situation presents, data security remains a critical issue for the industry. Although much of the focus is on cyber security, the importance of physical threats to information held in data centres must be remembered.

By Southco. 

It’s expected that the global data centre infrastructure management (DCIM) market will grow at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of about 15% between now and 2020.[1] Data volumes are exploding, requiring safe and effective storage, processing and administration. Unsurprisingly, the number of data centres being built around the world has increased, and all of them need to protect data from a range of threats.

More and more businesses are now hosting applications and storing data in colocated data centres. Although these colocation facilities represent a favourable alternative for many businesses compared with hosting data in a dedicated data centre, offering lower cost, greater reliability and 24/7 local support, shared access to critical infrastructure carries its own set of challenges. As physical security becomes more important, companies must safeguard business-critical data against accidental breaches to prevent theft or damage to valuable equipment, as well as the possibility of sensitive information falling into the wrong hands.

Protecting Against Threats From Within

Although extensive measures are in place to secure the perimeter of a colocated data centre, the biggest risk to security often comes from inside. Although the threat of malicious unauthorized access is a real concern, it’s worth mentioning that a sizable portion of breaches are accidental.

Research has shown that accidental and malicious unauthorized access from within data centres accounts for between 9% and 18% of total data breaches, costing the global industry more than $400 billion annually.[2] Given the ever present risk of data breaches, the need for physical security at the rack level becomes critical. Not only must these security measures maximize cost efficiencies for data centre owners, while barring access to unwanted intruders, but they must also deliver a complete audit trail, providing a clear overview of access and highlighting anything irregular or suspect to those with the power to act.

Traditionally, access to individual racks has always been protected by key-based systems with manual access management. In some instances, data centre owners have turned to a more advanced coded key system, but even this approach provides little in the way of security—and no record of who has accessed the data centre, making the collation of accurate audit reports practically impossible.

To ameliorate the problem of unauthorized access and concerns surrounding data security, traditional security systems are quickly being replaced by sophisticated electronic-access-based solutions. Above all, these solutions provide a comprehensive locking facility while offering fully embedded monitoring and tracking capabilities. They form part of a fully integrated access-control system, bringing reliable access management to the individual rack. The system also enables the creation of individual access credentials for different parts of the rack, all while eliminating the need for cages and thereby saving cost.

What makes these electronic-access solutions so effective is that they can generate digital signatures to control and monitor access time and tracking for audit trails, helping to comply with growing data-security standards including PCI DSS, HIPAA, FISMA, European Data Protection and Sarbanes-Oxley. Furthermore, as a standalone system, they require no network and no software to operate, instead being complemented by a manager key that can be used to add and remove users in real time as well as execute a power override if necessary.

An Integrated Solution for Rack Security

Any physical-security upgrade in the data centre has its issues, of course. Uninstalling existing security measures in favour of new ones costs both time and money, which is why data centre owners are turning toward more-intelligent security systems such as electronic-locking swinghandles, which can be integrated into new and existing secure server-rack facilities. They employ existing lock panel cutouts, eliminating the need for drilling and cutting. This approach allows for lock standardisation in the data centre, saving considerable time (and therefore cost)—something that holds real value given the pressing demand for data centre services.

The device also helps to solve the issue of rack security by integrating traditional and contemporary access control, giving the racks maximum protection. Physical access can be obtained using an RFID card, pin code, Bluetooth, Near Field Communication or biometric identifications. Furthermore, the addition of a manual-override key lock allows emergency access to the server cabinet and surrounding area. Even in the event that security must be overridden, an electronic-access solution can still track the audit trail, monitoring time and rack activity. Such products have been designed to lead protection efforts against physical-security breaches in data centres all over the world.

Adapting Technology to Meet Future Needs

As data centre threats continue to increase, technologies such as electronic-locking swinghandles will become even more in demand as companies seek greater protection for their business-critical data. Therefore, security systems must become more intelligent and integrated to afford business owners peace of mind. The industry has an increasing need for access solutions that combine protection and monitoring functions to combat the often overlooked threat of physical data breaches.

[1] http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/data-centre-infrastructure-management-market-size-growth-forecast-at-1468-cagr-to-2020-594541381.html

[2] http://blog.gemalto.com/security/2016/09/20/data-breach-statistics-2016-first-half-results/

Virtualised IT architectures and the associated technology they require are putting increasing pressure on the need to manage power effectively in data centres. Virtualised machines (VMs) run at 70 – 80% capacity compared with 10 -15% for non-virtualised machines; this translates into enclosures demanding up to 40 kW of power each. Additionally, virtualisation allows applications to switch rapidly and unpredictably from one server to another, which helps data centres balance critical power demands, but also creates a whole new importance for power flexibility.

Knowing this and how to manage it properly is critical to the viability of enterprises as, according to a recent white paper by Eaton, outage costs can reach nearly £5,000 an hour for small businesses of up to 100 employees, rising to a staggering £780,000 an hour for large corporations with 1000+ employees.

Fortunately, effective solutions exist. Adopting a robust, intelligent power management strategy lets operators realise the full potential of their modern IT architecture while avoiding the reputational and financial costs of an outage. This can be crystallised into five logical steps: Protect, Distribute, Organise, Manage and Maintain. 

Step 1: Protect

Protection comprises Uninterruptible Power Supply (UPS) backup power sources to avert data loss and ensure business continuity in the event of extended power outages. UPSs protect sensitive IT equipment from power disturbances when the mains power is present in addition to providing backup during power outages.

Step 2: Distribute

Intelligent power distribution includes cables and intelligent rack power distribution units (PDUs) that deliver outlet and section current information, which allows users to quickly determine exactly where energy is being used, and identify rogue hardware that’s consuming excessive energy. Accurate metering also simplifies load balancing and reveals locations with spare power capacity.

The information provided by power distribution devices is enhanced by environmental monitoring that measures a range of variables, triggering backup and failover policies to minimise data loss and optimise recovery. 

Step 3: Organise

The equipment itself should be organised into secure and reliable IT infrastructure housing, offering easy access for maintenance. Virtualisation condenses power and cooling loads into smaller footprints, so more efficient cooling strategies become essential. Containment of hot and cold airstreams is becoming increasingly popular; this depends on well-managed raised-floor data centres, where all potential air leakage gaps are sealed to maintaining uniform, sub-floor, static pressure and airflow distribution. Racks that avoid leakage and internal hot/cold air crossover are critical to these strategies. 

Step 4: Manage

Visibility and control of the intelligent power management strategy is facilitated by suitable software integrated into the virtualisation platform. Status data for all UPS and PDU power devices in the virtual network can be viewed together with network, physical server and storage information, from a single pane of glass. This helps to ensure business continuity as managers can make decisions informed by both power and IT equipment status. Reaction can be faster and automated disaster recovery policies become more effective.

Step 5: Maintain

Preventive maintenance is also essential to any power management strategy. Modern UPSs are reliable, but they are still complex devices and subject to failure, while other equipment such as PDUs also require care. Risk can be avoided by implementing the right service approach for all the components in the system.

Both UPSs and PDUs can be maintained and their service life extended with regular servicing and monitoring. Cover should include on-site visits for both preventive maintenance and emergencies, UPS and PDU exchanges, spare electronic parts, batteries and battery trays, and a professional helpline.

Integrating these five steps into a cohesive and effective power management strategy calls for the right hardware, software and service tools – components that combine into a resilient, long term solution as well as performing excellently on their own. Eaton’s industry expertise, support and solution portfolio offer these tools, allowing the user to build a truly optimised power management strategy that lets them leverage the benefits of an IT architecture.