Data Center Boom Comes with Headaches

As computing moves to the cloud, it's never been a better time to develop and own data centers. Or a more stressful one, said the speakers at Bisnow's Real Estate Meets the Cloud event on Wednesday. That's because there's little margin for error: data centers have to be absolutely safe, absolutely efficient and absolutely reliable.

PECO Energy's Tom Brubaker gave the opening remarks, stressing that too many data center owners and managers don't know about the incentives available from utilities to cut their energy consumption—as many as 70% of owners, according to a Green Grid survey. PECO's suite of energy efficiency incentive and rebate programs, which is called PECO Smart Ideas, has resulted in $423M in energy-related savings for customers since it was implemented in 2009, he says. A roomful of real estate pros came to the event, which was held at the Ritz-Carlton in Philadelphia.

Data Center Management industry leader Bill Leedecke. Our speakers agreed that security is an ongoing major concern for data centers, but there's no one solution for every facility. Physical security needs are often met with various rings of control and by limiting the number of people who have access to the center to an absolute minimum. It's relatively easy to isolate a stand-alone data center compared with those data centers—and there are still quite a few—that are part of multi-tenant buildings. In those locations, the security challenges multiply.

SAP facility manager James Dodd. But even physically isolated centers are at risk if their network security is compromised, the speakers said. Again, there's no single solution that applies to every kind of facility. Yet it's critical to find out what works best for a property, because attacks can, and do, result in lost business-to-business applications and theft of confidential information. The panelists also stressed the need for internal and external audits, and putting procedures in place to protect data centers from employees with malicious or mercenary intent.

The University of Pennsylvania IT senior director Donna Jacobs. Apple made news in the data center world recently with its plans to convert a 1.3M SF manufacturing facility in Arizona into a massive data center, the speakers noted. That particular project ought to go well, they explained, because former manufacturing facilities are often quite sturdy, with access to much more power than even a data center uses. Not every older building is ripe for such a conversion, however.

Comcast Business senior director Chris Connors. In fact, not that many older non-data center buildings can be successfully retrofit at a reasonable cost, so complex is the process. As one of the panelists put it, "Most existing buildings aren't usable as modern data centers." Everything has to be just right for it to work, including connectivity and a reliable and cost-effective power source. Not only that, the structure has to be completely resistant to intrusions from the outside environment, such as water leakage.

The Data Centers CEO Gene Kern. The speakers also said that modular design is an up-and-coming trend in data center development. There are a number of advantages to that approach, but mainly that the components are designed to be replaced over time. That way, data center owners can upgrade their properties—and data centers will always need upgrading to stay competitive—while at the same time keeping clients on line, another absolutely critical consideration.

McCausland Keen & Buckman shareholder Andrew Maguire, who moderated. A major question in the development of modern data centers is the trade-off between high initial capital investment versus savings over the life of the facility. Some remarkable savings in operating costs, especially in energy usage, can be built into a data center—but sometimes at a prohibitive cost. Developers need to weigh their options carefully when considering exactly how much capital investment is reasonable, factoring in their sources of funding, the expected demand for the facility over its lifespan, and more. Check back next week for more coverage of our data center event.