DatacenterDynamicsFOCUS: Give us some idea of the scale of the data center estate operated by the BBC.

Paul Boyns: The BBC is quite a distributed organisation and we have server rooms in 40 locations around the country. But we concentrate our IT in two data centers, probably equivalent to 300 racks of equipment in those. Predominately in the BBC’s real estate, we have colo facilities we use for one of our two main data centers, and we are currently looking at another colo facility in the north of England in order to complement the portfolio. What we are not intending to do is build one specifically for the BBC. We would rather buy services where they are available.

DCDF: Is that part of an ongoing strategy?

PB: Our strategy is buy over build – that fits with the way our revenue works. Obviously, we get a fixed amount of revenue every year, therefore a managed service approach makes sense to us. Plus, we would want to get the economies of scale we get from a larger facility.

DCDF: How does the carbon environment affect the strategy?

PB: It is putting pressure on us to have a much better handle on the amount of energy we’re using across the portfolio. As I said, we have 40 sites across the UK and each of those has some kind of facility local to it. We need to make sure they are all running efficiently and if there is equipment on-site that should be in an enterprise data center. We should be able to move that to somewhere where it can be housed more efficiently. Secondly, in terms of those enterprise data centers, the key is to factor in the carbon requirements, in terms of BBC strategy, to reduce its carbon footprint. So we need to make sure the data center service provider can demonstrate to us that it has appropriate security measures and capacity for the growth we need, and that it is also able to meet our demands for appropriate PUE; for example, for data center efficiency.

DCDF: How is it being charged internally?

PB: We have an advantage in the BBC in that we have a centralised technology budget, which means we look to make investments in technology that will make savings without necessarily having to approach different parts of the organisation. The exception to that is energy, which is currently paid for by the facilities management arm of the BBC – BBC Workplace. We have increasingly good relations with them and are working closely to ensure the IT equipment we’re putting in, and the energy use which that is driving, is built into the business case. Ultimately, there are three things we are doing. Number one is, we are doing a review of all the rooms we have at the moment to see if they can be run more efficiently – whether in terms of air flow or whether it is a matter of the size and scale of the room, and what we’ve got in there. Secondly, we’re looking at the ability to virtualise the equipment in that room. Thirdly, there are a lot of efforts to ensure we have measurements in place across the estate so we can identify technology kit as opposed to any other energy use within a given site.

DCDF: Facilities v IT relationships. How do the conversations begin?

PB: They began because energy price was going up and facilities management within the BBC obviously had to drive down energy costs within the organisation. Technology is clearly a large contributor to that. It fits with what we want to do anyway in regards to our commitment to reduce the BBC’s carbon footprint. Therefore, both BBC Workplace and Future Media and Technology have common goals. It is actually a perfect synergy. It took the environment and energy cost to drive that together, and the result is good for the business.

DCDF: One of your most high-profile developments is BBC iPlayer – that had a major impact on data center strategy.

PB: It has had an impact on the enterprise data center strategy because, in addition to a traditional enterprise data center, we have to have a facility delivering high-capacity and low-latency streaming out to the internet. That requires a specific type of facility that wouldn’t be economical for email and file and print services. So it has meant we have a specific tier of data center for the on-demand content distribution.

DCDF: Can you calculate the energy use upfront?

PB: We do know what the energy consumption of that is, because it is a ring-fenced activity and therefore we are able to project ahead. We have thought about what that is going to do to our carbon footprint and how we can improve that. So, for example, we use solid-state disk for popular content in order to get the throughput we need. It also reduces the energy consumption on those sites. As much as possible, we’re trying to make sure we have the information and data in the right place. It is going from distribution data centers, then we’re demoting it into an enterprise data center, and then archiving it on to tape when it is the right thing to do. We promote and demote material to get the best bang for the buck. But that doesn’t mean it is easy to manage. It is simply a consequence of the environment we’re in at the moment. As we have to distribute more content online, we may find we have to tweak the model, or we may find that we have to use more third-party services, so we’ll be keeping an eye on that.

Click here to see the video of Paul Boyns' Seminar at DCD London November 2009