As we know data center business is changing rapidly because of the visualization and green IT. Any changes will happen on the following designs? If so, feel free to provide your comments and input. -security -fire protection -consolidation and virtualization -automation -environmental control -UPS -Battery banks -Diesel generators Anything else might get change?
I haven't seem much change in datacentres. Maybe you're confusing the datacentre itself with the people who use them such as hosting providers, where there have been massive changes in recent years. I don't think datacentres themselves are going to change much. The datacentre is just a facility that provides the power and floor space with much of the stuff you mention in their post - hopefully all of it multi-redundant. I don't think virtualization will directly affect datacentres except, perhaps, in that the companies using them will be able to reduce both their floor space (racks), power consumption, and even cooling requirement using virtualization and more power-efficient technology (power supplies, CPUs, SSD drives). We've made some massive savings by consolidating racks with virtualisation. As for green IT, I'm not sure what they can do directly except provide better insulation. But the biggest problem most DC's have is keeping them cool enough due to the heat the servers produce so maybe better insulation would be a bad thing. Datacentres need 100% reliable power and their backup systems will generally be lead-acid battery banks and diesel generators (neither particularly green, but reliable). Since the DC's don't generate their own power but buy it in, perhaps they could choose a greener provider, but they are in a competitive environment and their power needs are vast, and to be honest I don't think I've ever had a customer ask about the source of the power being used...they just want to know their servers will always be live. The biggest changes brought by green initiatives will be the server manufacturers and the DC users. More efficient power supplies, CPUs that run cooler and consume less power, solid state drives, allow a higher density of servers in a rack (as does virtualisation) so they could end up using less power per rack for the same performance, or greater performance for the same amount of power, or require less significant cooling. None of these are direct concerns of the datacentre and certainly aren't within their direct control. In that respect, I don't think datacentres themselves (we're talking about building fabric here) are going to change much at all.