Issue link: http://cp.revolio.com/i/207723
Let me take a moment to provide a sampling of quotes from the article: "Most data centers, by design, consume vast amounts of energy in an incongruously wasteful manner, interviews and documents show." "The pollution from data centers has increasingly been cited by the authorities for violating clean air regulations, documents show." "The inefficient use of power is largely driven by a symbiotic relationship between users who demand an instantaneous response to the click of a mouse and companies that put their business at risk if they fail to meet that expectation. "A field born of cleverness and audacity is now ruled by something else: fear of failure." [with reference to fear of downtime] For the normal American that woke up to their morning coffee, the words that were likely evoked included: "crooked", "wasteful", and "apathetic". Those adjectives are particularly harsh, I understand. But, every data center manager had a meeting that Monday with their CIO, CTO, and any C-O that you can think of. There was probably some finger pointing, a deposition, and a demand for a forensic audit. But at the end of it: a necessary roadmap to redemption. Everyone wishes that their 15 minutes of fame included winning on Jeopardy or praise by the national media for saving a 8 | THE DATA CENTER JOURNAL cat. In this instance, however, the national P.R. party for data centers was simply a disaster. Unfortunately, most within the industry felt that the spotlight was unwarranted, misleading, and at worst false. The responses reflected cynicism, ire, and refutation: Mike Manos – "Perhaps they expect that their micro-fiche experts would be able to serve the demand for these articles in the future? I do not think so." [with reference to serving NYTimes.com demands] Dan Woods – "It would shock me if John Markoff, the dean of tech reporters at the Times, had read this story carefully, given its many glaring misconceptions, omissions, and distortions." Jon Koomey – "The article conflates different types of data centers, and in the process creates a misleading impression for readers who are not familiar with this industry." It is very clear, regardless of the context, that data centers are now on the public stage. As stated before, regardless of the initial accuracy, all actions moving forward will likely be scrutinized. While it pains talented individuals to play the temporary heel to the face of the investigative journalist, the outcome should prove to be fruitful should the industry choose to pick up the gauntlet. Organizations need to be introspective and critical in their self-evaluation: assess initiatives, their implementation, and results taken over the past couple of years. It helps to use an abridged scientific method internally: • Establish acceptable benchmarks • Data gather • Observe benchmarks • Form conclusions • Roadmap At the very worst, a group finds unacceptable performance from this process. While that may initially feel like a blow to the ego, it should not be met with pink slips and strategic downsizing. Organizations that treat it otherwise would be succumbing to the current perception: "A field born of cleverness and audacity is now ruled by something else: fear of failure." Many institutions have already initiated that introspective process and begun to impart change. This visit would not be successful if we didn't take a moment to point out some of the industry activity that has occurred since the publication of the article. "In many facilities, servers are loaded with applications and left to run indefinitely, even after nearly all users have vanished or new versions of the same programs are running elsewhere." The quote above was taken from a section in the article entitled "'Comatose' www.datacenterjournal.com