The First Facility Management Blog

The slowing economy is having very little effect on demand for IT services, while driving improvements in energy efficiency and resource utilization, according to a recently released report from The Aperture Research Institute™ (ARI), a research organization established by Aperture Technologies Inc., to research data centers, their challenges, and best practice management.

ARI surveyed more than 100 data center professionals across a range of sectors including the healthcare, banking and insurance, retail, telecommunications, government, and pharmaceutical industries. According to the report, 73% of data center managers surveyed expect demand for IT services to increase during the next two years, while more than half (56%) predict there will be no increase in their budgets during the same period of time. Thirty-seven percent of those surveyed expect their IT budgets to fall, with 26% predicting a drop of up to 10%; 11% of those surveyed foresee even greater cutbacks.

“With the global economy in a downturn, data center managers are being faced with the combined challenge of rising demand for IT services and tightening budgets. This is forcing them to find new ways of doing more with less,” said Steve Yellen, principal of The Aperture Research Institute.

“From the results of our survey, it appears that data center managers are placing a greater focus on utilization and efficiency of existing resources. This is likely to cause a revitalized focus on tools that provide insight into resource allocation and use,” he continued.

The report shows that data center managers are looking at ways to squeeze more from their existing resources, with 80% of data center managers surveyed confident they can create at least 10% additional capacity through better management of existing assets. Thirty percent said they could find an additional 20%.

“The companies with the best chance of emerging from the current economic downturn strongly positioned to compete are those that invest in tools that enable them to gain actionable insight into their resource allocations,” said Andrew Fanara, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency ENERGY STAR products program manager. “This information will enable them to make smart decisions that will result in cost savings and operational efficiency.”

Other survey results show that data center managers are also looking to green initiatives to help manage their operating expenses, with 87% of those surveyed currently having a green initiative in place. Of those indicating they have a green initiative in place, only 22% believe that the economic downturn will slow the pace of their green efforts. Thirty-nine percent of respondents do not expect the economic slowdown to have any impact, while 26% expect to intensify efforts to go green.

 

Environmental Systems, Inc. (ESI) has acquired ECC Controls, Inc. (ECC) in a strategic growth move that expands ESI’s technology offerings and its Midwest presence. ESI provides a range of technology and services in the areas of building automation, systems integration, networking and IT infrastructure, security, life safety, building operations, and software applications in Wisconsin, Illinois, and Michigan. ECC provides temperature controls, building automation, energy management, and security systems in Wisconsin and Upper Michigan.

“The acquisition of ECC Controls results in a strategic synergy between the two companies,” said Paul Oswald, president of ESI. “ECC Controls is a respected supplier in the building automation and management field. ECC brings a premier technology brand, T.A.C Andover, to ESI, which adds to ESI’s existing role as a T.A.C I/A  partner. In addition, ECC provides an expanded customer base and an important regional location in Eau Claire, WI that will allow us to serve our customers in western Wisconsin.”

ECC’s employees and operations have been integrated into ESI. The ECC Milwaukee location has moved to the ESI facility in Waukesha, WI.

ESI has earned several industry certifications and accreditations that include LEED professional accreditation from the U.S. Green Building Council, NICET fire protection engineering accreditation, NATE HVAC/R technician excellence certification, MCSE IT systems certification, PSP security professional certification, CEM energy manager certification, and others.   

Emerson Network Power, a business of Emerson, released its annual Data Center Users Group (DCUG) “Inside the Data Center” report yesterday. More than 165 data center, facility, and IT managers participated in the survey, which reported these findings:

• Data center criticality is rising. Three out of four respondents said in this year’s survey that the data center is more critical today than in past years. Many of these are large facilities that have had high availability goals for years.
• Power densities across the room and within the rack are increasing sharply. In doing so, they’re pushing facility capacity to the max—and fast. In the last two years, average rack power density has risen from 6 kW to 8 kW. More than 10% of respondents said they will be out of data center capacity by the end of this year, and a total of 68% percent expect to be at capacity within the next three years.
• Despite tight capital equipment budgets, changes to the data center are still planned. Thirty-seven percent of survey participants responded that current economic conditions are impacting their ability to operate or expand their data center. However, in a sign of just how dynamic and critical the data center has become, more than 75% of survey respondents are still planning for changes to take place within their facilities.
• Data center managers are unwilling to compromise availability for efficiency. Data center managers will be taking into account corporate initiatives to improve energy usage throughout the data center; yet, this directive is challenged by the understanding that availability remains the top priority. On a continuum of one (reducing energy usage is main priority) to seven (maintaining high availability is our main priority), 69% of respondents identified a priority level between five and seven in favor of high availability.
• Energy usage strategy still missing. A comprehensive energy usage strategy remains elusive for a majority of businesses despite one in four respondents having completed an analysis of the efficiency of their data center equipment. Only 28% of survey respondents have a documented strategy to reduce energy usage. 

The entire DCUG “Inside the Data Center” report is available for download in the white papers section of www.liebert.com.
 
The DCUG is a group of approximately 2,000 data center, IT, and facility managers founded by Emerson Network Power in 2003. The group meets semi-annually to collaboratively discuss the most relevant issues affecting the reliability, availability, and cost of operation for mission critical installations. The group’s membership comprises executives with a wide variety of IT and facilities management expertise from an assortment of companies, including board member companies Vanguard, Cincinnati Bell Technology Solutions, and JPMorgan Chase, among others.

The Physical Security Interoperability Alliance’s (PSIA) IP media device application programming interface (API) is gaining the attention of the industry’s leading companies involved in networked professional security and surveillance systems. This document, which was released at the ASIS conference in September, has already had more than 100 companies register to receive the specification.

“We anticipated a strong response from the professional security industry as the demand for networked systems continues to grow at a rapid pace,” said David Bunzel, executive director of the PSIA. “Companies offering networked solutions expressed strong interest in working with the PSIA to support standards that will further accelerate interoperability and seamless compatibility across a diverse range of applications including building management, access control, storage, and voice over IP.” 

Because of the open nature of the IP Media Device specification, it is readily available by registering at the PSIA web site. One of the benefits of becoming a member of the PSIA is being able to participate in the working groups. This allows a company to provide contributions to specifications and have access to specifications at an early stage of their development. The PSIA remains dedicated to representing and reflecting the broadest set of inputs and industry perspectives, and supports industry specifications and standards that will enable all manufacturers and service providers to develop and deliver functionality and value to end users. 

“GE Security is committed to the work of the PSIA, especially in helping drive the development of products that can be easily configured to support customer requirements,” said Tom Cashman, general manager, video products, GE Security. “A great example of this work is the PSIA’s IP media device specification, which has the potential to simplify integration, reduce costs for companies developing products, and facilitate faster growth of the industry.” 

The PSIA held its fifth meeting at the ASIS show which included the election of officers, the addition of a second working group to address video analytics, and the formation of an ad-hoc group to support storage requirements. Rob Hile of Adesta LLC was elected chairman, Danny Petkevich of Texas Instruments was elected vice chairman, and Francis LaChance of Genetec was elected treasurer. The analytics working group will be led by Bob Cutting of ObjectVideo and the ad-hoc storage group will be led by Igal Dvir of NICE Systems.

“With analytics more and more becoming a core component within enterprise video surveillance systems, the market response to current standard protocol initiatives from analytic and video management platforms has been extremely positive,” declares Bob Cutting, who heads product management at ObjectVideo. “PSIA, with its membership representing the entire video ecosystem, provides an ideal channel through which we can collectively assemble a single standard to simplify video analytic deployment by system integrators for end customers.”

The PSIA is already taking steps to engage other industry and standards organizations to collaborate, advance specifications, and support open standards. The PSIA has been represented at CENELEC meetings in Europe and is working with other international standards bodies. The PSIA has also made contact with other industry standards groups and will work towards open standards and specifications which provide significant benefits to the industry.

 About the PSIA

The Physical Security Interoperability Alliance (PSIA) is an open membership organization founded in February 2008 to promote the interoperability of IP-enabled security devices. Participating companies include Adesta LLC, ADT Security Services, Cisco Systems, CSC, DVTel, GE Security, Genetec, IBM, IQinVision, Johnson Controls, March Networks, ObjectVideo, Orsus, Panasonic, Pelco, Santa Clara Consulting Group, Stanley Security, Texas Instruments, Verint, and Vidyo.

This week’s bonus FF post comes courtesy of Wired magazine, which runs an annual Saddest-Cubicle contest. And since Wired caters to the IT audience, nearly all of the finalists were submitted by poor souls from that profession.

 

Pictured here is the winner, submitted by David Gunnells (who also supplied the photo). Julie Sloane of Wired, writes,

David Gunnells is an IT guy at the University of Alabama at Birmingham. His desk is penned in by heavily used filing cabinets in a windowless conference room, near a poorly ventilated bathroom and a microwave. The overhead light doesn’t work — his mother-in-law was so saddened by his cube that she gave him a lamp — and the other side of the wall is a parking garage. Gunnells recalls a day when one co-worker reheated catfish in the microwave, while another used the bathroom and covered the smell with a stinky air freshener. 

For the other 10 finalists, click this link.

Personally, I think the IT contractor inside a 40-foot steel cargo container is worse than this. Have you put anyone in a work station worthy of this (dis)honor?

After seeing these entries, I have come to the following conclusion: some facility professionals should be ashamed (particularly those at the facilities featured in this segment). The sad thing is, I’m sure we’ve all “worked” in a similarly dismal setup at one point in time. I know I have.