Monthly mailer from Emerson Network Power

December 2008

Last month, Emerson Network Power released its survey on IT&C CAPEX Spending in Asia Pacific. Some of you requested a copy of the survey and expressed concerns about the economy and its effects on the IT industry. Taking this discussion further, Emerson Network Power highlights ten ways to get more from a data center with less money. So before closing the year, take time to read through the ten suggestions and work your way to saving money.

Happy Holidays!

Best Regards,

Kristian Melquiades

Chief Editor

Kristian.Melquiades

@Emerson.com

10 Ways to Get More from a Data Center with Less Money

We talked to data center experts about ways organizations can get more with less from their data centers. Here are the top 10 suggestions they provided:

1.       Cover the bases – it may be difficult to recover from an outage during tough economic times than during prosperous one. A relatively small investment in precision air condition and backup power can actually ‘save money’. For example, precision air conditioning can adequately protect data center assets, whereas comfort cooling can’t do alone. A double conversion backup power solution can provide redundancy essential to raising system availability and ensuring business continuity.

2.       Start from core – Increasing density may be a more cost-effective approach to meet the need for more compute power than new facility development. For example, a new cooling architecture can enable densities notably higher than average data center densities at  fraction of the cost of building a new facility

3.       Assess before action – one of the smartest moves you can make is to assess your data center. Discover and resolve your data center’s vulnerabilities that threaten availability. This helps your planning and budget allocation.

4.       Start from room to rack – instead of conditioning the whole room environment, utilizing an integrated enclosure like a mini computer room, offers a cost-effective solution to protect equipment.

5.       Cap the cold aisle – better than hot aisle containment, cold aisle containment allows cooling units to run at reduced capacity to achieve ideal cooling conditions and save energy costs.

6.       Check the weather forecast – in some locations, economizers can be used to allow outside cool air to complement data center cooling systems and provide ‘free’ cooling during colder months. This lowers energy consumption, lessens wear on some components in the cooling equipment and decreases operational costs.

7.       Watch often (if not always) – Oh not ESPN! I mean monitoring. Keep an eye on performance, which will help you steer clear of unnecessary maintenance and repair costs.

8.       Improve energy utilization – lots of opportunities exist to improve energy use throughout data centers of all sizes. For example, adding variable frequency drives to cooling systems allows them to recognize reduced loads and operate more efficiently. Every Watt of savings achieved on the processor level will create a total of 2.84 Watts of savings for the facility.

9.       Avoid cutting corners – A preventive maintenance plan can extend equipment life and reduce maintenance costs. For example, employ a battery maintenance strategy to avoid the number one cause of UPS failure: bad batteries.

10.   Don’t Stop Thinking About Tomorrow. It may be necessary to minimize capital expenditures but make sure you don’t compromise future scalability. UPS scalability is emerging as a popular solution to reducing the risk associated with miscalculating future capacities. 

Asia IT to emerge stronger despite slowdown in spending

IT spending in Asia Pacific (excluding Japan) will drop to a growth rate of 7.1% in 2009, a decrease from 10.2% in 2008, predicts Springboard Research. According to the research firm’s executive brief Asia Pacific IT Market Predictions 2009, all countries in the region will be affected, but the degree of fallout from the economic crisis will vary across countries.

Most affected countries include Australia & New Zealand, Hong Kong, Korea, Singapore, Taiwan and Thailand. Countries running at medium risk include Malaysia and the Philippines, while China and India will continue to grow, albeit at lower rates.

Said Dane Anderson, CEO and EVP of Research at Springboard Research, “However, even with slower growth Asia will continue to emerge as a critical region for IT vendors and we will continue to see a substantial shift in investment moving to Asia and other global emerging markets.

Moreover, the research highlights the key trends that will impact enterprise IT in the AP region in 2009:

·          Cost concerns will drive a primary focus on IT Infrastructure Consolidation

·          Increased efficiencies helps Virtualization emerge as key to data center transformations

·          Cost savings help green IT projects go mainstream

·          Managed services emerge as a bright spot in a year of economic downturn

·          Cloud computing movement gains momentum in Asia

·          Slowdown presents an opportunity for skills set upgrade & acquisition

·          Unified communications gain steam as companies cut travel costs, strive to improve communications and productivity

·          The crisis will lead SMBs to focus on outsourcing, managed services and SaaS to transform their business

·          Increased financial challenges lead to tightening of regulations, compliance and IT governance

·          Government spending to boost the economy will benefit IT companies that know the public sector

The research concludes that the crisis can be seen as an opportunity for innovation and business transformation, building competitive edge, driving operational efficiency and offering new levels of experience. Organizations need to prepare to take advantage of the rebound once it starts developing.

This email has been sent by Emerson Network Power

Editorial Team

Chief Editor: Kristian Melquiades, Enterprise Marketing Manager  / Assistant Editor: Lleuvelyn Cacha, Content Writer

Designer: Ryan del Rosario, Channel Marcomms Specialist