Emerson Network Power’s latest industry survey of data centers shows that rising densities are creating power and cooling concerns, with the majority of respondents citing either heat density or power density as the biggest issue they are facing. Over half (60%) of respondents said that their data centers can last only 20 minutes or less if power to the cooling system is lost, and 46% of respondents cited power as the limiting factor in a data center manager's ability to add capacity.
In addition to this information, the survey also provided some insight into why density has become such an issue: average rack densities rose to 8.8 kW (a 46% increase from the spring 2006 survey results), and the maximum density in any given rack increased to 14.8 kW (a 37% rise compared to the spring 2006 survey). The survey also revealed that 68% of the more than 100 respondents are already using some sort of virtualization.
The other top concerns revealed by the survey, in order of importance, were energy efficiency, availability, space constraints, adequate monitoring/data-center-management capabilities, and technology changes. The results of the survey (which covered a variety of data-center topics, including power management, precision cooling, energy efficiency, technology implementation and consolidation) were released during Emerson’s AdaptiveXchange 2007 customer event.