Issue link: http://cp.revolio.com/i/611691
THE DATA CENTER JOURNAL | 5 www.datacenterjournal.com networking to the soware-defined data center, this trend would appear to be taking the world by storm. But wait— what exactly is it? By one definition, the soware-defined data center is a facility that has virtualized all its infrastructure, including compute, storage and network- ing. Server and storage networking have been trends for years. A soware-defined network is a slightly newer concept: it in- volves separation of the network's control and data/forwarding planes to improve adaptability. e technical details tend to be rather obscure, however. Is it hype or reality? Time will tell. soCial unDerCurrents Among executives at major compa- nies, the gender disparity in their IT staffs is of increasing concern. Likely, programs designed to increase the representation of women and (certain) minorities are based more on sniffing the political and populist winds rather than any fundamental cor- porate sense of justice, but they garnered numerous headlines in 2015. And with the resurgence of an increasingly malig- nant egalitarianism in universities—oen at the expense of free speech and even common-sense thought—these programs will continue to multiply, for good or ill. Moore's laW enDs? Despite years of premature obituar- ies, Moore's Law may finally have come to the end of the road—depending on how you define it, anyway. If considered purely in technical terms rather than eco- nomic ones, the increase in the number of transistors on a chip continues. But cost may have finally become a sticking point, with some engineers and market watchers suggesting that Gordon Moore's eponymous prediction lost steam at 28nm as transistor costs began rising for finer process technologies. For data centers, the result will be a more agonizing choice regarding cost versus efficiency for new IT equipment. But the point at which further technical improvements will cease remains in the future. e question is simply how long vendors and customers will be willing to pay for them. still DeBating the talent shortage e debate over a supposed shortage in IT talent (as well as talent in related STEM fields) continued in 2015, with politicians and corporate executives ignor- ing the fact that, for instance, some half of STEM graduates pursue jobs outside their fields of study. e lack of skyrocketing salaries would seem to indicate that apart from a few new or fast-changing special- ties, this ostensible shortage is a myth. Yet perpetuating it helps companies that are looking for cheap talent, since a greater supply of candidates means lower labor costs. uPtiMe enDs tier CertifiCation for Data Center Designs Partially in response to widespread misuse of its "Tier" certification system, the Uptime Institute ended its program for certifying data center designs. Because some data center operators would certify their designs without necessarily building the facilities to those same specifications, they had a marketing gimmick without the infrastructure to back it up. Whatever one thinks of the value of the Tier system, particularly relative to its costs for achiev- ing certification, this tightening of the rules was a welcome measure in the sight of companies that have taken the costly step of certifying actual data centers, not just paper designs. tax Breaks everyWhere A growing number of states are of- fering property- or sales-tax incentives to lure data center operators. But as some op- erators (including Apple) discovered, these offers may come with a catch. In Oregon, the incentives were effectively canceled for some companies because of the state's method of assessing property, which includes "intangibles" such as brand value. e state's governor signed legislation in 2015 that amended this issue, but the situation illustrates the potential problem of relying on state goodies. In particular, given that many states are in dire fiscal straits, the value of these incentives may quickly evaporate if governments decide it's time for a "revenue increase." More- over, as more states offer enticements to data center operators, they join a growing crowd from which it's increasingly difficult to distinguish oneself. Whether states will continue to believe in 2016 that a few jobs and a big-name data factory are worth the incentives remains to be seen. ZoMBies in the Data Center—ZoMBie servers, that is A research study issued in 2015 found that 30% of physical data center servers are "comatose." ese zombie servers draw power by virtue of being switched on, but they perform no useful task. If that number is even remotely accurate, data center operators have a huge opportunity for energy savings by identifying these servers and consolidating equipment. Unfortunately, the primary culprits may be smaller data centers rather than larger ones, suggesting the problem is widespread rather than focused in a few isolated locations. ConClusions e data center industry in 2015 may have seen few surprises, but it's still subject to a number of interesting trends. Among the overarching ones that never seem to go away are energy and security. e shi to the cloud continues apace, with the enterprise data center being on its death bed by some accounts. In all likelihood, however, on-premises facilities will retain value in at least some cases, so the cloud won't gobble up the entire industry. Yet the temptation of shoving off all the technical, political, regulatory and other hassles onto someone else and simply paying by the month (or something along those lines) is an overwhelming temptation for many companies. Next year will no doubt see a continuation of many of these trends. Whether it will entail any major surprises is uncertain, naturally, but the potential for some kind of unexpected event driving substantial (even if boring) changes is certainly present. n