In years gone by, big bulky servers sat in roomy racks on a raised floor, with central air-conditioning keeping temperatures under control. But now, with blade-servers in high-density environments and ever-increasing demands for mission-critical 24x7x365 operation, IT professionals find themselves under the gun.
The "E-word": efficiency
"Most organizations now regard their IT infrastructure as the backbone of their business operations, said Yau Kan, senior VP, Fujitsu Hong Kong. "However, CIOs and their IT teams constantly have to balance their requirements for higher efficiency and better performance with the realities of tighter budgets."
Yau said consolidation is a powerful tool for enterprises to unlock value from their IT infrastructure. "In Hong Kong, we see a strong push to centralize servers and consolidate datacenters from our customers: to pull servers and persistent data storage out of branch offices and centralize them in a small number of corporate datacenters," he said. "IT managers, especially in Hong Kong, are investing more in space-saving infrastructure advances such as blade servers in to maximize computational power within the datacenters."
Power consumption is a major concern among Hong Kong customers, said Felix See, general manager of Technology Solutions Group, HP Hong Kong. "More servers are multi-core now," he said, "so they generate a lot of heat, and this is a growing problem." See said that power demands can lead to overheated servers, burned-out fuses, and even batteries catching fire.
"When you have 10-20 blade servers in one rack, that's a dense environment," said See, "and [that environment] often also includes storage. In our products, we use a cooling-fan design we call the "Intelligent Cooling System...it improves the efficiency of the cooling." See added that this system operates using "an LCD panel like a printer [that] shows the temperature of the infrastructure. It's a very different concept [for server-control] and easy to scale out."
The traditional cooling aid-raised-flooring-is not always the best approach, said Peter Hannaford, director of business development, availability enhancement group, EMEA, APC. He explained that it reduces space at the top of the room (a problem in Hong Kong where ceilings are often low) and can also be wrongly used to store cabling or other items which interfere with air flow.
Hannaford added that education was key to his firm's efforts: "A few PowerPoint slides showing CFD (computational fluid dynamics) help demonstrate the TCO of energy-savings. Our philosophy is to move the cooling units closer to the source of the heat: the servers. By doing so, we find the 'APC sweet spot': it's modular so it's scalable, and it doesn't rely on raised flooring."
Going virtual
"Storage systems continue to become more complex as the amount of stored data and storage equipment increases [but] there has been little increase in the number of storage administrators in Hong Kong," said Yau. "The management workload of administrators has increased [and] due to the relentless growth of user data, the networks that are used to store this data are becoming larger and more complicated. Server management has become a burden to system administrators, and there's an urgent need to simplify it.
Yau said that "virtualization is expected to ease the burden of server management because it provides simplified, logical views of complicated storage and network systems. Server virtualization can ensure more efficient deployment of IT resources and higher productivity in storage, network and workload management. The Fujitsu chief said that according to his firm's forecasts, virtualization can improve server utilization by 80 percent, improve server availability, help with disaster recovery, testing and development, and centralize server administration.
"One of the prominent trends we saw in 2006 was virtualization," said HP's See. "All different types of virtualization, including servers and storage...local telco customers are using it as well as utility companies." See added that virtualization appeals to these clients because of crisis-incidents, including "virus attacks and stoppages." According to See, virtualization technology makes it easier for firms like telcos and utilities to adjust to changes.
Top of agenda
When talking to enterprise customers, what's on top of their agenda? "What issues would cause them to lose their job?," said See from HP, who stressed what he called the "5 Cs" as best practices to help his firm's clients stay employed: "continuity, control, consolidation, continuity and compliance: the top items on our enterprise customers' IT agendas."
"Virtualization is the top priority of our enterprise customers," countered Yau. "Virtualization enables change to the shape of workload that the infrastructure supports without redesign and implementation, reducing response time to business change, [and] the introduction of automation and virtualization insulates the workload from the effects of infrastructure failure-further improving business continuity."
"Customers are asking for technologies that lower their TCO," said Philip Chua, managing director for Hong Kong, Atos Origin, "such as remote infrastructure management (LANs, SANs, Servers) application outsourcing, managed security and information lifecycle management."
"Companies need to do more with less," explained Chua. "Enterprises are desperately trying to lower their IT costs: people, hardware (infrastructure), housing... and are re-visiting previous outsource/offshore plans-seeking the benefits of TCO reduction."
"Corporations are automating more and more business processes and functions than ever before, which increases activity within the datacenter," said Yau. "The datacenter is now so important that a CIO/IT manager has to get it right every time, which is complicated because business unit managers and the executive team are also now IT-literate and less forgiving."
Yau added that his firm saw a 20 percent increase in spending compared to last year, which he said was "primarily due to the need for virtualized and eco-friendly products," the latter including blade servers.
Green power
Yau quoted Gartner VP and analyst Steve Prentice as saying: "financial and environmental pressures, compounded by legislative changes and increasing consumer awareness, are combining to force IT vendors and CIOs to take a closer look at the impact 'green' will have on their business. The IT industry must now look beyond the current power issue and pay greater attention to broader issues, such as limiting carbon and greenhouse gas emissions, using materials from renewable resources, recycling materials and re-using heat from datacenters." Yau said his firm also recognizes that environmental protection is a vitally important business issue, and its servers are designed for lower power consumption and reduction of heat generation.
"Distributed server farms today generate as much as 3,800 watts per square foot, compared to 250 watts in 1992," said Desmond Yuen, executive of IBM Systems and Technology Group, IBM China/Hong Kong. Yuen added that "with thousands of dollars of cooling capacity needed for each server-assuming 1,000 distributed servers producing 400 watts each-the electricity bill could hit more than US$35,000 per month alone."
"A Gartner poll of 180 datacenter managers at the beginning of the year showed cooling was the #1 concern," said Hannaford from APC. "But right now the emphasis is more on efficiency."
Hannaford explained that energy costs have increased as server-room density increases, and along with the added power comes added heat, which must be dissipated in a controlled fashion. "Most hardware failures occur in the top-third of the server rack," he said, "because that's where the heat concentrates." To help combat this problem, APC issues products like vertical cooling coils, which can be retrofitted to racks from other manufacturers.
Demands in 2006
How have requirements changed compared to previous years? "From a tech point of view, more cores on a single CPU," said HP's See, who added that "a lot of clients will convert from a single server to a blade-server setup." He added that "sales depends on support."
"Hardware-accelerated encryption tape drives [are] on the rise," said IBM's Yuen. According to Yuen, the latter is due to "a series of tape loss fiascos from world-famous companies and organizations" which has led to "increased market demand for encrypted tape."
"The biggest change we have seen is in the managed security and storage space, both from suppliers and users," said Chua. "Additionally, we have seen in increase in remote managed storage projects-especially related to fulfilling compliancy requirements, i.e. secure email, email archiving, archive management, DRP and BCP."
Challenges for 2007
What do you expect the biggest market challenges to be in 2007? "People resources," said See from HP. "People move between organizations, and expect higher salaries...the organization's ability to retain core staff--and their skills--will be key."
Chua from Atos Origin agreed: "In 2007 the biggest challenge will continue to be the availability of skilled personnel. Today there is a skills gap," he said, "tomorrow the gap only widens as new technology comes into play."
"Enterprises now engage in discussions on whether to outsource, in-source, deploy a BPO strategy, or use a combination of the three," said Yau. "The overall strategy must support [current and future technologies, cover disaster recovery sites, key remote sites, the main facility and even standardization of datacenter 'environmentals' in the same way IT standardizes technology platforms."
Looking forward
Hannaford described the datacenter market as "buoyant," noting that business declined in 2000 after the Y2K "bug" failed to manifest, but has rebounded as IT managers see problems when they either attempt to cope with legacy systems or deal with heat-problems from new servers.
"The outlook for 2007 appears bright for the server market in Hong Kong," said Yau. He added that research firm IDC predicted quick growth in the blade server market, pegged at US$9 billion in annual revenue by 2008 and representing 29 percent of server units shipped, with Linux-based servers will account for 29 percent of unit shipments and about US$9.7 billion in revenue. Windows-based servers are projected to grab the lion's share with 60 percent of all server shipments and revenue of $22.7 billion.
"The datacenter of the future provides IT operations as a set of flexible and modular services that are driven by changing business policies," said Yau. "As businesses react to market dynamics, datacenters will support the business through improved IT service levels, as well as improving efficiency and lowering IT operating costs." But he added that the "key challenge for Fujitsu in 2007 is intense competition from other industry players due to the commoditization of the server market and the increasing need for virtualized products and solutions."
Legal power
International law firm Morrison & Foerster (MoFo) claims over 150 lawyers resident in offices in Beijing, Hong Kong, Shanghai, Singapore, and Tokyo. "In China, Morrison & Foerster China provides integrated advice on US, UK. Hong Kong, and PRC law and...advises on a variety of areas including private equity, venture capital, mergers and acquisitions, real estate, IPOs, technology and sourcing, and foreign direct investment," said the firm in a statement. MoFo also said they serve as the sole international legal counsel to the Beijing Organizing Committee for the XXIX Olympiad in connection with the 2008 Summer Games.
Expanding infrastructure
MoFo employees use email, BlackBerry devices, VoIP phones and teleconferencing systems to communicate. The email server-part of MoFo's Hong Kong IT infrastructure-also supports offices in China, Japan and Singapore.
Following a move to larger premises, this infrastructure required expansion. Andy Chan, technology supervisor for MoFo's HK office, upgraded to a network critical physical infrastructure (NCPI) based plan. The previous backup power equipment was a UPS system with a 15-minute time limit. With the old system, Chan says he was also concerned with memory issues in the system that would prevent him from knowing the exact battery life.
"Even if we had full redundancy support in the server memory, switches, and storage area networks, if these are not paired with a stable power supply, this would be a wasted investment," said Chan. "All the servers and systems would come to a halt in the event of [a] power outage."
"Our attorneys are billed hourly for their work so we put a high value on finding the best possible ways to save both time and money," said Chan. "It's essential that we employ technology [which] ensures that communication with our clients is never interrupted." The law firm chose APC to deploy the requisite tech.
Limitations and implementations
The new facility's server room's ceiling was low, leaving very little space for raised floor cabling and ceiling coolant pipes after the 42U height server rack enclosures were installed. The fixed coolant pipes and raised floor cabling from the previous building could not be moved with the server relocation.
Also, the server room air-conditioning needed to run 24x7 and condensation was caused by the nightly suspension of central air conditioning. Air conditioning also had to be targeted at server hot spots, which isn't possible with central air.
APC engineers deployed a three-phase 60KVA power supply system which occupied less room than a single-phase power supply system-high power density and a post-outage backup power supply of 45 minutes better suited MoFo's needs. The power supply system also had LEDs indicating remaining power and backup time calculated in real-time: if a battery module failed, it could be swapped out without shutting down the system. If there was any power supply fluctuation, the APC system would notify Chan by email and text messages.
The installation comes with an environment monitoring system (EMS) device to keep temperature and humidity in check and a webcam/intrusion detection system. Based on the success of the system in the Hong Kong office, Morrison & Foerster plans to standardize use of the APC solution globally, said APC.