Emerson Network Power ‘Data Center 2025’ report forecasts ‘massive changes’

Emerson Network Power has released “Data Center 2025: Exploring the Possibilities”; a forward-thinking report summarising four months of global research designed to identify the industry’s vision of the data centre in the year 2025. The results range from the expected increase in utilisation of the cloud, to the ambitious, largely solar-powered data centres with power densities exceeding 50 kW per rack. One thing was clear: Most experts believe the data centre as we know it will undergo massive changes over the next decade.

More than 800 data centre professionals from around the world responded to the Data Center 2025 survey, with dozens of others contributing their thoughts via interviews, email and video. The feedback, viewed collectively, indicates most in the field remain bullish on the data centre industry and on continued innovation in the IT space and beyond. For example, on average, experts predict density in 2025 will climb to 52 kW per rack. According to the Data Center Users’ Group™, sponsored by Emerson Network Power, average density has remained relatively flat since peaking around 6 kW nearly a decade ago, but experts are anticipating a dramatic upswing in density that could radically change the physical environment of the data centre.

“We started the Data Center 2025 initiative with a sincere desire to discover what our customers, collaborators, colleagues and others in the data centre community believe the future holds for this industry,” said Steve Hassell, president, data centre solutions, Emerson Network Power. “We approached the research with an open mind, no expectations and no preconceived notions of what we would find. The results reflect a level of sophisticated understanding, visionary thinking and genuine optimism that I find inspiring. I believe the true impact of this report lies not only in its measurement of current opinion, but in its ability to spark future innovation.”

Other notable survey results and forecasts from the report:
Big changes in how data centres are powered: The experts believe a mix of sources will be used to provide electrical power to data centres. Solar will lead, followed by a nearly equal mix of nuclear, natural gas and wind. Sixty-five per cent believe it is likely hyperscale facilities will be powered by private power generation.

Cloud forecasts are somewhat conservative: Industry experts predict two-thirds of data centre computing will be done in the cloud in 2025. That’s actually a fairly conservative estimate. According to Cisco’s Global Cloud Index, cloud workloads represent around 46 per cent of current total data centre workloads, and will reach 63 per cent by 2017.

?DCIM will play a prominent role: Twenty-nine per cent of experts anticipate comprehensive visibility across all systems and layers, while 43 per cent expect data centres to be self-healing and self-optimising. Taken together, that would indicate 72 per cent of the experts believe some level of DCIM will be deployed in 2025 – significantly higher than most current estimates of DCIM adoption.

Utilisation rates will be higher: That increased visibility is expected to lead to more efficient performance overall, as 72 per cent of industry experts expect IT resource utilisation rates to be at least 60 per cent in 2025. The average projection is 70 per cent. That compares to estimated averages today as low as 6-12 per cent, with best practices somewhere between 30-50 per cent.

“The data centre of 2025 certainly won’t be one data centre. The analogy I like to use is transport,” said Andy Lawrence, vice president of Datacenter Technologies and Eco-efficient IT at 451 Research. “On the road, we see sports cars and family cars; we see buses and we see trucks. They have different kinds of engines, different types of seating and different characteristics in terms of energy consumption and reliability. We are going to see something similar to that in the data centre world. In fact that is already happening, and I expect it to continue.”