Gartner warns of datacentre headache for IT staff

Expect datacentre power, cooling and space problems

The rise of server sales will bring about new problems for IT administrators

IT administrators should be prepared to contend with a rise in datacentre power, cooling and space problems as they take on more servers in the near future.

The warning comes from research firm Gartner, who advised users to quantify the consequences of new deployments and take action without delay.

"While server sales are expected to rise the next two years, many IT administrators are already grappling with datacentre power, cooling and space issues of its current fleet," said Rakesh Kumar, research vice president at Gartner.

"With the snowball effect that these issues tend to create within an organisation, users need to act quickly."

Gartner has compiled some advice for IT administrators facing the challenge:

Do not underestimate the issues - Quantify the problem, says Gartner. Users need to work with facility teams to get accurate data to quantify the impact of infrastructure expansion on the amount of data center power, cooling and available space.

Use monitoring tools - Users need to start implementing energy-monitoring tools to manage and predict capacity requirements.

Accelerate consolidation and virtualisation projects – Gartner said that the benefits of these projects often increase toward the end, so users should accelerate the speed of adoption and change.

Assess the benefits of delaying new server purchases – In some cases, it may be beneficial to delay the acquisition and use capacity that is freed up from consolidation and virtualisation projects, advised Gartner.