Event Recap
RECAP | ROUNDTABLE | Capital Projects in the New Normal
The reliance on IT continues to grow causing no shortage of digital infrastructure projects, be it new construction, expansion, or upgrades. However, the digital infrastructure industry faces many challenges, mainly caused by the pandemic – economic, supply chain, and staffing shortages just to name a few. In this roundtable, Terry Altom, Senior Consultant for Uptime Institute, assisted attendees in discussing how they are addressing these challenges to plan and complete these capital projects in this “new normal” environment.
The roundtable kicked off with Terry and the attendees discussing how lead times is a major issue impacting capital projects, as well as operations. New construction and upgrades are taking way more time than expected. Large major critical components, like engine-generators, UPS systems, transfer switches, and switchgear are taking sometimes double and triple what was planned. One attendee brought up how they can’t light up IT equipment because of delivery delays to the critical power system. Switchgear is in some cases 6 months behind schedule. UPS equipment taking greater than 40 weeks, transfer switches taking 20-30 weeks, circuit boards taking 52 weeks where some of the examples given. HVAC equipment does not seem to be delayed as much, but attendees indicated delivery dates keep changing. A data center construction project expected to be online before the end of this year is now delayed until 2024. It was also mentioned how IT equipment, like core network equipment are experiencing long lead times as well (6-9 months), while servers and storage devices seem to be coming back to normal delivery times.
Data center operations is not immune to supply chain issues. Attendees talked about how coil replacements are taking 6 months, and how critical parts can take up to 6 months or more to get. An example was given about how refurbishing a rectifier is taking upwards of 1 year while purchasing new is taking 2-3 months, so they are shifting to more purchasing of more critical spares.
The economy is playing a big part in this as well. Attendees indicated justifying capital projects has become harder, takes longer, and is requiring more approvals. Operations budgets are being impacted as well. Companies are being more judicious about spending overall. One attendee mentioned how their spending in colocation and cloud has made justifying spending on their own data center infrastructure a lot more difficult.
Staffing shortages is another component impacting capital projects and operations. The pandemic caused personnel to take early retirement causing staffing impacts. One attendee mentioned how staffing shortages is impacting their ability to provide money-making services, reducing their profit. Another attendee indicated staffing shortages has caused a restructuring of their operations and support services.
Lessons learned and takeaways: The following items were mentioned as things to consider going forward.
• Start early in planning and approvals to get ahead of things. One example is how colocation companies and hyperscales are starting planning and construction well in advance of when needed due to lead times.
• Consider more modular data center design and pre-fabricated construction.
• Consider adding greater redundancy now to get ahead of things. This can be tied to starting earlier to get ahead.
• Increase the quantity of critical spares. The spare parts will most likely take more time to be delivered, so start now.
• Improve vendor and manufacturer relations to leverage their buying power and equipment stock.
• Consider expanding existing service contracts to include more critical services. Can be tied to improved vendor/manufacturer relations.
• Consider more automation and AI to help with staffing issues.
The roundtable kicked off with Terry and the attendees discussing how lead times is a major issue impacting capital projects, as well as operations. New construction and upgrades are taking way more time than expected. Large major critical components, like engine-generators, UPS systems, transfer switches, and switchgear are taking sometimes double and triple what was planned. One attendee brought up how they can’t light up IT equipment because of delivery delays to the critical power system. Switchgear is in some cases 6 months behind schedule. UPS equipment taking greater than 40 weeks, transfer switches taking 20-30 weeks, circuit boards taking 52 weeks where some of the examples given. HVAC equipment does not seem to be delayed as much, but attendees indicated delivery dates keep changing. A data center construction project expected to be online before the end of this year is now delayed until 2024. It was also mentioned how IT equipment, like core network equipment are experiencing long lead times as well (6-9 months), while servers and storage devices seem to be coming back to normal delivery times.
Data center operations is not immune to supply chain issues. Attendees talked about how coil replacements are taking 6 months, and how critical parts can take up to 6 months or more to get. An example was given about how refurbishing a rectifier is taking upwards of 1 year while purchasing new is taking 2-3 months, so they are shifting to more purchasing of more critical spares.
The economy is playing a big part in this as well. Attendees indicated justifying capital projects has become harder, takes longer, and is requiring more approvals. Operations budgets are being impacted as well. Companies are being more judicious about spending overall. One attendee mentioned how their spending in colocation and cloud has made justifying spending on their own data center infrastructure a lot more difficult.
Staffing shortages is another component impacting capital projects and operations. The pandemic caused personnel to take early retirement causing staffing impacts. One attendee mentioned how staffing shortages is impacting their ability to provide money-making services, reducing their profit. Another attendee indicated staffing shortages has caused a restructuring of their operations and support services.
Lessons learned and takeaways: The following items were mentioned as things to consider going forward.
• Start early in planning and approvals to get ahead of things. One example is how colocation companies and hyperscales are starting planning and construction well in advance of when needed due to lead times.
• Consider more modular data center design and pre-fabricated construction.
• Consider adding greater redundancy now to get ahead of things. This can be tied to starting earlier to get ahead.
• Increase the quantity of critical spares. The spare parts will most likely take more time to be delivered, so start now.
• Improve vendor and manufacturer relations to leverage their buying power and equipment stock.
• Consider expanding existing service contracts to include more critical services. Can be tied to improved vendor/manufacturer relations.
• Consider more automation and AI to help with staffing issues.
Request an evaluation to view this report
Apply for a four-week evaluation of Uptime Intelligence; the leading source of research, insight and data-driven analysis focused on digital infrastructure.
Already have access? Log in here
Posting comments is not available for Network Guests