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Data centers’ costs and complications
Companies that have embraced the web revolutation usually own and operate their own data center.
At first, it makes perfect sense to keep all that critical data within the realm of the company.
We’re talking about customer data, accounting, sales and project management, research & development data, collaboration tools and of course, web-enabled resources destined to either prospective or exisiting customers, partners or employees.
After all, this data is so critical to the future of most companies, it would make little sense to outsource it to a rather remote and unknown “partner”. With this in mind, modern companies must realize that a well oiled data center is hard work and that the costs and complications must be factored in to stay on top of things.
For instance, here are a few rules of thumb when looking to establish a new data center, nowadays:
- Fewer & bigger – Choose larger systems which are considerably more efficient than multiple smaller systems.
- Power matters – Get the facts early on about how much power is available in your area and while you’re at it, obtain detailed records of usage by your current data center (if any).
- Location is still king – Picking the right site means looking for favorable power pricing and availability (frequent blackouts are bad for e-businesses).
- Keep your cool – If you pile up a lot of iron, consider directly attached and liquid cooling modules for specific server clusters.
- Virtualize intelligently – While it’s not widely advertised (for obvious reasons), some apps don’t virtualize at all while some of those that can come with license agreements that hinder any cost savings.
The electrical bill issue is currently costing way more than initially accounted for. Consider that between 38% and 63% of the power budget typically goes to servers while air conditioners eat up 23% to 54%.
Over time, data centers have become some of the most expensive real estate owned by companies. If you’re interested in opening up your own data center, you should know the upfront price tag for a 50k square foot facility with 40 watts of power per square foot runs anywhere between 20M$ and 25M$.
In the coming years, thoses prices should keep on rising so if you wish to build your data center now, it makes economic sense!
Intel and AMD need to bring down the power consumption of their chips. Intel is offering dual-core processors and they usually consume between 68 and 95 watts of power, which is a great improvement over the “regular” server processors burning between 130 and 150 watts. The lower the watts, the lower the cooling costs!
As you can see, outsourced hosting packages, for non-mission critical applications in your company, should be considered an awesome bargain because building up (and operating) your very own data center doesn’t come cheap!
Tags: data centers, web servers, web hosting, rack space, server cooling, computers, intel, amd
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