“There are a few reasons for the decline in In-Row/In-Rack revenue,” explains Elizabeth Cruz, author of “Data Center Cooling - 2014.” “These products are used either as standalone cooling solutions in small data centers or as supplemental cooling in high-density applications. The first reason is that a growing number of companies are outsourcing their small data centers to colocation or cloud providers, which tend to have large data centers using traditional room cooling.”
The second use case, as an additional cooling option for high-density areas in a data center, is also not emerging as a growing trend. In-Row/In-Rack products offer significant energy savings once rack density approaches the 8 to 10 kW range. At that point, it becomes more efficient to install an In-Row/In-Rack product than to increase airflow from a CRAC or CRAH unit to cool a hot spot in a data center. However, with average rack densities fixed in the sub-5kW range, the operational savings from an in-row/in-rack product are not realized, and justifying higher investment costs is difficult. There are a number of data centers operating at higher densities, and these are the facilities that help support the moderate growth projections for the next five years. But these are relatively few compared to the large population of low-power-density data centers.
In addition to these two specific challenges for in-row/in-rack products, there is the issue of the sluggish data center market. IHS tracks nearly every segment of the data center infrastructure market and has witnessed continued revenue contraction over the past two years. Cruz explains, “We see several reasons for the slowdown in the data center segment. First, the economy—this continues to be a major factor in companies postponing large capital investments, such as data centers. Second, companies are consolidating their data center operations by outsourcing to colocation or cloud providers and moving their smaller data centers to a centralized location. This leads to the consolidation of more optimized data centers that maximize efficiency and reduce the need for energy and cooling. Third, the increasing adoption of virtualization and improvements in server technology leads to higher computing performance per watt, which requires less energy and cooling.”
In the medium term, IHS anticipates a return to growth in the data center market, as consolidation improvements and technology can no longer absorb the increasing needs for digitization, computing, storage, and processing. Cruz concludes that "when the market returns, IHS expects there will be an eventual increase in densities that will once again call for high-density cooling solutions, such as In-Row/In-Rack products.
Equinix selects Infinera Cloud Xpress for data center interconnection in Hong Kong
Infinera announces that Equinix has selected Infinera Cloud Xpress to interconnect its data centers in Hong Kong. Infinera Cloud Xpress offers Equinix a platform with hyperscale density, operational simplicity, and low power consumption.
