Emerald isle welcomes the DCA and PEDCA project

WITH IRELAND being home to three of Europe’s largest data centres, it’s no surprise the second Data Centre Ireland Conference held in Dublin was even bigger and better than last year’s inaugural event with over 50 sponsoring companies and over 750 delegates through the doors over the two days.

Having played a part last year, the DCA was present again this year along with The PEDCA project and many of its European participants visiting the conference for the first time. The DCA sponsored the evening drinks and networking evening with lots of interest and discussion about the benefits of an Ireland based DCA chapter. This will certainly be more of a focus of the DCA going forward; already with over 200 organisations supporting the non-profit organisation, the DCA is establishing many members across many countries, in fact around half the current members are non-UK, so as soon as there is a sustainable number in any one country the establishment of an appropriate non-commercial entity can take place, so that national as well as international matters can be properly organised and represented.

The PEDCA project featured in the programme with Simon Campbell-Whyte, Executive Director of the DCA, giving a presentation describing the project’s aims and objectives. Following this Mark Acton, Norland’s Product Director and Chair of the EU Code of Conduct Technical Committee, chaired a panel session where topics and questions on the project were discussed with a PEDCA panel comprising of Drs. Frank Verhagen of Cerios Green, Maikel Bouricius of Green IT Amsterdam Region, Dr Jon Summers of University of Leeds and Simon Campbell-Whyte of DCA.

The two day exhibition featured two full conference programmes with a wide spectrum of talks covering many aspects of the data centre industry. Simon Campbell-Whyte of the DCA chaired one of the morning sessions featuring Steve Strange of Anixter reporting on the redefinition of the data centre they see, Prof Ian Bitterlin’s Green Grid talk on ISO standards, HP’s talk on data centre energy efficiency and Ray Lloyd of IBM who shared his very interesting research on improving efficiency in legacy data centres.

The conference organisers worked hard to ensure the event ran smoothly so a big thanks to Hugh and his team for what was a great event which promises to be even bigger next year.

DCA “Boot-Camped” Graduates – if you are hiring – here’s a fantastic resource!
As you may have heard, the DCA in conjunction with University of East London and CNet held a 2 week Data Centre Boot Camp which provided 21 out of work graduates with training worth a market value of over £3,500 each. Candidates were from a mix of backgrounds and ages from degree to phD levels but were all selected with one over-riding factor; keenness and willingness to work in the data centre sector.
You now have an opportunity to interview these candidates - They learnt:
£ What is the data centre industry and its role in life and business
£ The history of the data centre industry
£ What data centres do and the services they provide
£ The critical parts of the data centre
£ Industry Standards and metrics
£ 3-day CNet Training (eqiv. to data centre technicians course)
£ Role of Cloud computing
£ The future of the data centre
£ They all carried out Site visits at two data centres
£ In addition they all received “Strengthfinders 2.0” assessments and
reports.

They are all registered on the Data Centre Alliance site and can be contacted via this URL www.data-central.org/group/bootcampers
For further information please contact kellye@datacentrealliance.org or stephend@datacentrealliance.org

Join the DCA Energy Efficiency Steering Group
If data centre energy efficiency is important to your organisation joining the DCA Steering Group, will not only help you keep you abreast of what is going on with ISO standards, industry guidelines and current thinking, but also critically, provide the ability to add your voice and experience to the work. The data centre industry needs to ensure it is organised to respond effectively to the pressures and concerns of energy - so please join the group via Data Central here
www.data-central.org/group/energy efficiency

PEDCA survey – Your industry needs YOU!
The PEDCA Survey is a great opportunity to put forward your views to help shape the future of the industry. Completely non-commercial, the public funded survey is designed to assist the industry in defining the training, skills and research needs of the industry for our common benefit. The survey results will be shared with all who participate - you will even be able to view the results as the survey progresses.
The Survey is split into three parts, not every part will be relevant to everyone - here’s who they are aimed at:
£ Skills training and education - this is aimed at the industry›s
employers, if you employ data centre staff we need to hear from you.
£ Technology Road-mapping - this is for data centre enthusiasts,
experts, engineers, consultants, designers - thinking caps needed!
£ The Service Provider End User Survey - this is for the data centre industry›s service provider users, stakeholders and customers. If you use Cloud, Hosting or Colocation services we need your input on what data centres do, what›s good, bad and what can be improved..

It is crucial for the project and the industry that the survey gets wide input and participation so please invite your friends, customers and colleagues to take part. Just go to www.data-central.org, click on Pedca, Pedca Survey.
Many Thanks for your Support.

 

 

Developing standards of excellence:
The importance of industry bodies

Matt Lovell, CTO at Pulsant discusses the role of the industry body and why it is invaluable for fostering interaction and dialogue thus providing a centralised forum of advice and guidance supported by academic research.

THE DATA CENTRE INDUSTRY is a highly competitive landscape, characterised by a vast set of suppliers of all sizes, specifications and propositions. This sense of competition bodes well for the customer, and drives continual improvement and innovation across suppliers to provide better, more secure and efficient solutions. There is, however, the growing sense that while we are operating alongside other providers in a dynamic market, data centre enterprises face the same challenges and could gain even more from community knowledge sharing.

This is where industry bodies, such as the DCA, play an invaluable role. As data centre enterprises we have similar goals – delivering high quality, available, secure and efficient solutions to our customers, reducing costs and expanding market share. It stands to reason then, that providers of all types, specialisations, and sizes typically face the same or similar challenges in terms of the industry itself, customers and the products delivered.

For data centre providers especially, there are a set of issues that are always top of mind. These include security – of both data and physical security of data centre sites – environmental footprint, power requirements, and performance. An industry body acts as a link between these organisations and as a facilitator to foster interaction and dialogue with one another, which wouldn’t normally occur. Pulsant has been a DCA member for three years and in this time we’ve found the role of the organisation to be an invaluable one. With an in-depth understanding of the data centre industry, the DCA has effectively united key data centre providers with the ultimate view of bettering the industry supported by wider industry research and analytical data.

The DCA provides us with a centralised forum of advice, guidance and excellence that is strongly supported by academic research. The body is particularly vigilant in keeping up to date with issues that
continue to affect the entire industry, such as carbon reduction commitment (CRC), operational efficiencies and power
pricing. As a member we are able to share knowledge with other provider members, discuss issues and identify challenges that need to be addressed. While we may be competitors, this co-operation is done in a collaborative spirit. In this way we can work together to develop a set of best practices that can be used by other data centre providers, again with a view to improving the industry at large.

As the DCA incorporates members from the European Union and not just the UK, there is a broader level of expertise to be capitalised on and a bigger range of issues that can be raised in terms of serving a wider range of clients. We make use of the monthly webinars, conference discussions, blogs and social media channels to interact with the DCA, as well as other members, whether it is providing comment, seeking the answer to a question, joining a debate or posing a challenge or support training initiatives.
The benefits of being a DCA member are also forwarded on to our customers.

By essentially having access to a wider knowledge base and interacting with other providers who encounter similar issues and challenges, we are able to ensure that our customers are, in fact, receiving the best, most appropriate solutions to meet their requirements. This is particularly true when it comes to key issues, such as the big cost drivers of environmental impact and power supply. Going forward, we envision that more providers will see the benefit of belonging to such an important body.

Their inclusion will bring greater depth to the DCA in terms of knowledge sharing and opportunities to resolve challenges, better customer experiences, and ultimately assist in elevating the data centre industry’s profile in Europe and those of its members.

 

 

Kelly Edmond of the DCA reports on Data Centres Ireland

NEWS that Data Centres Ireland had grown significantly against the previous year was received prior to leaving for Dublin and that really was apparent upon arrival. With a 39% increase in delegate footfall from last year, in excess of 750 attendees visited the exhibition over the two days which was both encouraging and productive. The show programme ran extremely smoothly with talks taking place throughout the course of the exhibition on a variety of subjects over the two days. Delegates were treated to food and refreshments throughout the day keeping everyone energised and happy and the exhibition floor was alive with the buzz of sponsors, visitors and programme talks.
The DCA were kept busy with many visitors to the stand showing a great deal of interest in the PEDCA Project and developments and initiatives since last year’s show. With the DCA being the main sponsors for the Networking Drinks Reception I had the opportunity to meet a few of our members, namely Dataracks, EcoCooling, Future Facilities, Uptime Institute, Rittal, JS Humidifiers and Emerson. Having been in contact with many of them since starting with the DCA, it was a pleasure to finally put some names to faces and discuss some of the future plans and projects the DCA is working on. I think a big thank you is in order to all the team at Data Centres Ireland for organising and producing such a successful event. I for one am very much looking forward to returning next year and I look forward to seeing you there.