Thomas Waun took over as president of Emerson owned Aperture in September this year. He tells DatacenterDynamicsFocus about complexity, why IT and facilities can no longer exist in isolation, the competitive landscape, how green is driving vendor marketing and why he took the job.

FOCUS: What are the top three management issues facing data center operators today?
Thomas Waun: The top priority for the data center manager is always to make sure that the service levels meet the organisation's requirements. Everything else is secondary to that.

But there are some issues that will challenge them as they attempt to meet that goal: in particular, capacity, cost and responsiveness. Those are three closely related issues - capacity and cost are obviously linked, and responsiveness varies according to the capacity and resources available. All three of those come down to effective data center management and the maturity of the processes and tools in place.

The rise in high density and virtualisation over the last few years has thrown up numerous side effects, predominantly concerning power consumption and cooling. While equipment has become more sophisticated and data centers have grown in complexity, many data centers have not evolved their management tools and processes at the same time.

Strategic planning is needed to achieve efficiency. Without visibility and control at a granular level in the complex data center environment, organisations are faced with poor capacity management. A recent survey conducted by the Aperture Research Institute (ARI) revealed that almost 20% of data centers are operating at more than 90% capacity. That makes it hard for the organisation to be responsive, or to plan for the longer term.

Many companies continue to operate their data centers without discipline. Processes are not documented, access is not controlled and critical information and metrics are difficult to gather and rarely accurate. Data center managers must introduce the best practice processes, data center management tools and monitoring systems that will enable them to plan capacity, manage costs and ensure responsiveness.

FOCUS: Recently warnings have been given that energy issues will force the modification of most large data centers. Do you agree? What should operators prioritize? Do you agree that data center operators should start planning now for future energy shortages?
TW: Power is a large expense, and it's getting more expensive, so there's a clear incentive there to optimise its use.

However, the data center is ultimately in service to the rest of the business, and those who commission IT services do not have any insight into the energy consequences of their actions.

ARI research found that 74% of data center personnel questioned would not switch on power saving features on devices if it meant compromising on performance. The clear signal is that the business expects optimum performance from its devices.

At the same time, power is becoming a significant constraint. The use of high density devices is stretching the data center's power to capacity, which naturally increases the risk of outages.

Data centers need to plan to use their limited power resources more effectively, but there also needs to be organisational change. There needs to be a willingness to adopt greener technologies, and to charge business divisions back for the energy they use. That will ensure that there is a connection between the decision to commission a particular IT service and the energy bill that results. Standard business budgets can be valuable tools for enforcing restraint.

FOCUS: Should the green agenda be a primary or secondary concern to data center operators? Will green issues drive the market and accelerate data center management upgrades?
TW: Environmental issues have become the'hype' topic of recent years. This has made many data center personnel sceptical. They often view green IT as more of a sales pitch, than a genuine effort to save the planet.

That said, data centers are increasingly realising the need to go green and 70% of data centers now promise to have a green initiative implemented a year from now.

Fundamentally, most data centers need to overhaul their basic procedures to achieve maximum efficacy and to become greener.

ARI research reveals that only 24% of data center managers measure the energy efficiency of their data centers. And even more alarmingly, only 27% of data centers always remove their redundant servers. This lack of decommissioning process means many 'ghost' servers are left running - consuming power at a phenomenal rate.

Naturally, most data center managers place green issues as secondary to the smooth running of the data center. However, many environmentally sound procedures would prove best practice for the data centers overall. The sooner data centers realise the importance of cleaning up their procedures, the sooner they can become more efficient and more environmentally friendly, and the sooner they can make savings on the bottom line.

Green issues will continue to drive vendor marketing, but data centers will not be willing to replace old equipment until it has finished its useful life, however green the alternative. The only exception will be if energy costs rise so high that green devices can quickly pay for themselves. But data center managers need to acquire more faith in the technology first, and there needs to be a proven business case.

FOCUS: Holistic data center management: Traditionally facilities and IT monitoring were separate, will this continue to be the case?
TW: It can't. There are too many conflicting pressures on data centers for this artificial separation to continue. Facilities and IT are both working towards the same goal - ensuring the data center is as effective and streamlined as possible. Formalising a divide between them deepens differences that don't benefit the data center as a whole. You can't have one department responsible for devices, and another responsible for the power they depend upon, and expect to get optimal results from both. In order for there to be closer collaboration, though, there needs to be better communication. Having a shared management system that provides insight into the physical resources of the data center is a good place to start.

FOCUS: What IT equipment developments (e.g. virtualization, multi - core processing) will have the greatest impact on data center infrastructure management?
TW: Every new technology has its own demands. There are the challenges of understanding how much power and cooling devices require, both according to the manufacturers' ratings and according to their actual measured consumption. And there are the challenges of ensuring that they have the space, power and cooling they need and that they don't disrupt devices around them.

Virtualisation increases the complexity of the data center. It can also increase the risk, because if one server goes down, it could take multiple applications with it. It will become increasingly important for data center managers to understand how the physical assets in the data center, the IT devices and the applications interact so that they can assess the impact of any outages or equipment changes, moves or installations.

High density devices and blade servers have changed the fundamental constraints on the data center. It used to be that space was the limitation. Now, you can easily fit new servers into a rack, but you have to worry about whether you've got enough power and cooling to service them.

Data center managers are fairly risk averse, so new innovations tend to take a slow hold on the data center. The managers like to experiment with a few devices before rolling out fully, and they're not keen to rip and replace working equipment either. We expect to see an experimental phase of measuring the performance of multicore devices and becoming acquainted with their potential and limitation, before there is a full roll-out.

FOCUS: What will be the key concerns for data center operators in 2009?
TW: Critically, many data centers have an ageing infrastructure, with some of the newest designed six years ago. Yet the technology is becoming ever more sophisticated, and end users demand consistently high standards. This means data centers have to work extra hard to keep up and many simply don't have the necessary infrastructure in place. Data volumes will continue to grow and data centers will increase in complexity. That will still be true in 2010, 2011, 2012 and beyond. The challenge is how data center managers put processes and tools in place that enable them to cope.

FOCUS: Will mainstream IT players such as IBM and HP expand into the market for data center monitoring and management? Do you expect consolidation in the market?
TW: Today, the market is still not well defined and evolving. IBM and HP do talk about solutions for data center monitoring and management, but with the market as undefined as it is, we don't believe they directly overlap with our focus, within the management of the physical infrastructure of the data center.

We are currently working with both IBM and HP on integrating Aperture VISTA into their server monitoring products and IT service management products (CMDB, change management, asset management) and building go to market plans with them, so we see ourselves as partners versus competitors.

FOCUS: Why did you take the job as President?
TW: After extensive research on the company, I took the job of president because Aperture is the thought leader in this market and hands down the leading provider of software for managing the physical infrastructure of data centers. In addition, together with Emerson, the companies can deliver on the complete vision of data center infrastructure management for companies worldwide. With my executive leadership experience and extensive background in the IT industry, I see the opportunity to continue to lead Aperture in developing world class technologies for the increasingly complex data center world.