March 2012 - TDS Newsletter

New York / New Jersey Market Expected to See Data Center Expansion in 2012/13

According to a recently published annual survey from Digital Realty Trust, there has been major expansion in data center capacity in North America, and we can expect to see an even higher rate of growth in the coming two years. Over 90% of the survey participants expect to add data center capacity within the next year. 92% of the firms planning to expand are expecting to increase operations in the US, making it the most popular market for growth. Half of the firms anticipating capacity expansion also expect to expand in Europe or Asia.

The New York / New Jersey market tops the list of the most popular locations where companies anticipate additional growth in 2012 and 2013, according to the survey. Following New York were other major US cities including Chicago, Los Angeles, San Francisco, and Phoenix. Possible explanations for the increase include the new interest in, and implementation of, public, private and hybrid computing solutions; increasing demand from companies that deferred expansion plans during uncertain economic times; an improved economic position and the explosion of high density data storage and server technology that requires associated environment improvements.

TDS just completed a multi-facility data center site selection project for a major multinational law firm, including searching for a facility in the New York Metro area. TDS began by developing a list of potential data center facilities in the New York / New Jersey area, then contacted them all to compile basic information about their infrastructure, redundancy, and power and space capacities. RFPs based on the client’s requirements were drafted and sent out to the qualified sites. TDS drafted a short list of the best matched vendors, and accompanied the client to on-site visits. The client and TDS were impressed with the options available in the New Jersey market, and a great facility was selected for the client’s new data center.

What is Your Company’s Greatest Benefit from ERP?

Implementing an ERP solution can be time-consuming and expensive, but the long lasting benefits make it worthwhile. A recent study from leading research firm examines trends, benefits and implementation practices in the ERP industry by compiling responses from 246 participants from 64 countries. To ensure accurate findings, only respondents that had implemented an ERP system within the past year were allowed to participate.

Availability of information and increased interaction across the organization were the top two benefits that appeared consistently with 75% and 60% (respectively) of respondents noting the advantage. Other common benefits included improved lead time, improved customer interaction, reduced operating expense, reduced IT costs and improved supplier interaction. Only 6% of the respondents stated No Benefits Achieved.

So what is your company’s most useful benefit from implementing an ERP system? If you have not recently explored this solution, TDS offers a solution with a full suite of design, deployment and operational services for complete integration with your existing systems and processes. We customize solutions to align with your needs and provide deployment, training, hosting, and operational support services as appropriate. Find out how many benefits your company can find with TDS’s agile ERP solutions.

What’s Your PUE?

It is estimated that data centers in the US consume 2% of the nation’s electrical capacity, adding up to $2 billion per month in energy costs. Rising energy costs and efforts to reduce our carbon footprint have resulted in a rapid growth of “green” initiatives in the private sector as well as in government agencies. The US Department of Energy has created a target energy savings of 10%, overall, for US data centers, and companies throughout the country are looking for ways to optimize their infrastructure’s energy utilization. In the past, IT and cooling equipment have been targeted for efficiency improvements, but most recently the UPS (Uninterruptible Power Supply) has been the primary focus.

This is where a data center’s PUE comes into play. A data center’s Power Usage Effectiveness (PUE) is a ratio of the total facility power consumption divided by the IT equipment power consumption. It identifies and tracks the site’s energy efficiency and is considered by many to be the number one metric for analyzing a data center’s energy performance. A typical PUE is around 2.0, and 1.5 in newer data centers. To attain a PUE lower than 1.5, experts agree the first step is to optimize the UPS. A low PUE means lower energy costs and higher returns, but it is important to remember the big picture. Demanding a lower PUE is only effective when considering the data center’s health as a whole.


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