Efficient Servers Equal Efficient Data CentersEfficient Servers Equal Efficient Data Centers

In a commentary on Forbes.com earlier this week titled: "Servers: Why Thrifty Isn't Nifty," Kenneth Brill, executive director of the Uptime Institute, made an alarming statement:"We are currently in the biggest data center construction boom in history. At the same time, this boom is dramatically weakening the future flexibility and financial performance of information technology. ...The number of servers in the U.S. has grown from 5 million in 2000, to 10 million in 2005, to a projected 15 million in 2010. More servers eat up more electricity and energy costs go up. To avoid future energy shortages caused by increasing IT demands, 10 more power plants need to be built to the tune of $2 billion to $6 billion each, and their cost is ultimately going to get passed on to IT through increased utility bills."

The Uptime Institute is in a position to know about data center efficiency since it monitors data center uptime and maintains the nation's largest database of how data centers physically fail. Uptime's May 2008 report, Revolutionizing Data Center Efficiency, identifies three major problems that wreak havoc on efficiency in most data centers: