New research conducted by DatacenterDynamics at their Washington conference and exhibition indicates that owner/operator delegates in Washington have real fears as to the future availability of sufficient energy for their data centers and that many are looking actively at new efficiency technologies to allay those fears.
Datacenter Dynamics Washington 2007 represented the first visit of the world's premier Datacentre Facilities and Engineering Conference and Expo series to The District. The event welcomed more than 320 owners and operators of data centers and mission critical facilities as well as representatives from vendor organisations to The Hyatt Regency, Bethesda on 18th May 2007.
Research conducted at the event and comprising responses from 180 delegates confirm that the East Coast data center industry is committed to new technologies and solutions to achieve a necessary balance between strong projected growth, resource efficiency and corporate responsibilities.
The Washington sample includes representatives of the city's leading IT and telecommunications organisations, Government and engineering and construction companies. Collectively, the sample operates around 45,000 racks and 7 million square feet in the US, spending $3 billion in the past 12 months on building, refitting, extending, consolidating and outsourcing their facilities. Total spend over the next 12 months is projected to reach over $4 billion.
Attitudes demonstrated in New York are replicated almost exactly here. There is consensus at Washington that the data center industry holds major environmental responsibilities. 74.8% agree with this proposition and only 10.4% disagree with it. Additionally, 63.8% of Washington delegates believe that being socially responsible will make organisations more competitive rather than less. 73.0% of Washington operators believe that data centers can become green, and the sample is balanced between those who believe that resilience will be sacrificed to efficiency (34.5%) and those that disagree (37.3%).
There is a stronger sense in Washington that power may become a limited resource. Only 23.0% consider they have adequate power for their future datacentre needs, compared to 50.7% in New York.
With the strong projected growth in data center activity evident from Washington and the burgeoning sense that such growth needs to take account of a fast-changing energy landscape, the sample has adopted and is considering a variety of technologies and solutions. The key measures already adopted includes IT continuity/disaster recovery planning (50.9%), application and data capacity planning (39.7%), server virtualisation (35.5%) and extending the lifecycle of mission-critical equipment (33.2%). These measures are also top of the list for adoption where they have not been already deployed although the Washington sample indicates a very high level of future consideration of a range of whole of data center', IT, power and cooling and management/monitoring options.
Green' issues and resolving the disparity between good intentions and competitive pressures have been a recurring theme of DatacenterDynamics events of the past few years. By facilitating the engagement of Government, vendors, business associations and data centre owners/operators, DatacenterDynamics is able to facilitate also the development of ideas and solutions based on a full, practical and multi-faceted understanding of the issues.
In 2007, the DatacenterDynamics Global Series will include twenty-two events in the world's leading business centers and research conducted in parallel will develop local and regional perspectives on the challenges facing owners and operators of datacentres.

Download research from DatacenterDynamics Washington 2007 conference Click here to download the research findings (pdf)

For further information please contact George Rockett, Show Producer, DatacenterDynamics. Telephone +44 (0)20 7814 7989 or e-mail [email protected]. For Press & Research enquiries contact Nick Parfitt, SPA Communications on +44 (0)7900 601305 or e-mail [email protected]