Operators often say that data center infrastructure management (DCIM) software is a necessary evil. Modern facilities need centralized, real-time management and analytics, but DCIM is notoriously difficult to deploy. The software is also not easy to…
Increasing demand for data center capacity is challenging operators to optimize their server footprint. What is the relative value of virtualization, software containers, public cloud, and IT upgrades to manage growth? What elements of data center…
Earlier in 2021, ASHRAE’s Technical Committee 9.9 published an update — the fifth edition — of its Thermal Guidelines for Data Processing Environments. The update recommends important changes to data center thermal operating envelopes: the presence…
Uptime Institute’s annual survey, now in its eleventh year, is the most comprehensive, longest-running study of its kind in the data center sector. The findings reveal significant growth but also increasing complexity and challenges for owners and…
Most new technologies go through a hype cycle: A spark of interest and early investment is followed by a surge of hype, then a crash of expectations as reality sets in. Only over time and a period of work, absorption and adjustment does the…
Through their public commitments to net-zero carbon emission targets, cloud providers have re-energized talks in the data center sector of a major redesign of critical power systems. The elimination of diesel fuel use is chief among the goals, but…
Demand for edge data centers has started to increase from low levels. Uptime Institute’s research shows that owners, operators, and suppliers alike anticipate further growth across different industry verticals, especially in North America.While…
The financial services industry has developed a certifiable methodology designed to help banks recover from the complete loss of all IT systems for an extended period. Is this a blueprint for improving corporate resiliency?
A recent outage at Akamai took down access to cloud services from Amazon Web Services and Oracle, as well as online services for American Express, Charles Schwab, Costco, Delta Airlines, FedEx, United Parcel Services, and many, many others, mostly…
As artificial intelligence (AI) becomes increasingly sophisticated, one of its most anticipated benefits is a transformative reduction in the data center workforce, by augmenting the abilities of workers and relieving these workers of more…
Power purchase agreements (PPAs) are often a preferred method for data center operators to procure renewable electricity, but their fixed purchase price and duration (eight to 20 years) can pose significant financial and power management risks.Data…
The pandemic has accelerated some long-term trends toward greater use of digital services, remote working and remote operation. Overall, costs have been pushed up, but other impacts are less clear — some are even counter-intuitive. Many…
In the 12 months from early March 2020 to April 2021, COVID-19 made a big impact on how and where IT was used. This had a surprising — and in some ways paradoxical — impact on IT service availability and the number and severity of outages recorded…
A recent outage at content delivery network Fastly took down thousands of websites in different countries, including big names, such as Amazon, Twitter and Spotify, for nearly an hour. It is the latest large outage highlighting the downside of a key…
Edge data centers are generally small data center facilities — designed for IT workloads up to a few hundred kilowatts — that process data closer to the population of local end users and devices. Earlier in 2021, we surveyed data center owners…
Intelligence Team
Jacqueline Davis
Daniel Bizo
Andy Lawrence
Tomas Rahkonen
Jay Dietrich