The US is adding 400MW in data center capacity this year and Europe about half that. Never mind the rest of the world. But while all the attention is being paid to new data center builds, it is worth noting that modernization of aging data centers is also a giant part of a market that is bound to get even bigger over the next few years.
Peter Judge points to an overlooked area in data center operations in this report published in DataCenterDynamics:
IT equipment in a data center will need replacing, perhaps every three to five years. The mechanical and electrical parts of the facility have a longer lifetime, perhaps ten to twenty years. But during this time, they will also need maintenance, and eventually, replacement and upgrading. And these jobs will impact the whole data center.
No one seems to have clear figures on the size of the upgrade and modernization market, perhaps because it is hard to define. Some routine work carried out during the lifetime of the data center can fall into the category of upgrades: projects such as checking and improving the airflow by using blanking plates, brush strips and other components.
Some “upgrades” can actually take place before the data center is even built. “It’s far more effective to upgrade a facility when it only exists on paper,” one professional told me. This is much more likely to happen to enterprise facilities, where the project may have a long timescale, and the company’s requirements may change during the planning process, for instance, because of a merger or a change in business model.
Some upgrades are more substantial, either altering the containment plan in the data center, or adding capacity by changing or upgrading the cooling and power infrastructure. Modern IT is likely to have greater power density in the racks, and operators are beginning to run their kit at higher temperatures to reduce their cooling bills. This means that an upgrade may require different power distribution – and the addition of bigger power feeds – as well as a change in cooling systems.
