More Data Center Energy Efficiency Surveys

Back in January, I posted a blog with data from a survey Cassatt conducted with hundreds of IT professionals about energy efficiency. I also posted a follow-up blog citing a number of other surveys.

So, in keeping with the theme, I've found a few more resonating surveys and pieces of data.

First: Ken Brill of The Uptime Institute just published a survey on "Data Center Capacity and Energy Efficiency" indicating some amazing factoids about "the invisible crisis" that's looming:

• 42% claimed their data centers would run out of power in 12-24 months
• 23% claimed their data centers would run out of power in 24-60 months
• 39% claimed their data centers would run out of cooling in 12-14 months
• 21% claimed their data centers would run out of cooling in 24-60 months

Next: Paul McGuckin of Gartner Research just published the 2007 Data Center Conferenct Poll Results for Power and Cooling Issues. The first of many findings tables tells quite a story:

Other high-points from Gartner:

• Power capacity has overtaken cooling capacity as the #1 facility problem in their current data center. Gartner attributes this to the high-density equipment being purchased and rolled out.
• Companies must do some sort of facility-related action to deal with this problem (including expansion, upgrade, and even relocation). Only 10% said they would take no action.

Net-net: It would appear that many data centers have ~ 2 years or less of runway left. Given that most new data center projects take a year or more to fund and build, it would seem that 2008/9 are the years that the industry will really begin to make some changes.