By Courtney Macavinta
When a large web hosting company relocated a data center earlier this year, its customers were offline for days versus the projected 12 to 15 hours, so the outage made headlines. It was the worst-case scenario for data center relocation. Yet experts say that such a situation can be mitigated by the old axiom: proper prior planning.
Between the high costs of energy in running data centers and the rise of space-saving server virtualization technologies, many CIOs need to consider whether it's time to urge their C-level peers to undertake a data center relocation. They can do this by consolidating the data center or moving data center operations to a different -- perhaps cheaper -- location.
"There are a lot of reasons enterprises might consider relocating," says John Phelps, Gartner research vice president. "For example, they're trying to consolidate and bring multiple centers together. Sometimes they decide they want to move to a new tier level for redundancy. Other reasons are power drains and cooling demands. Or, due to hurricanes, floods, or fires, they want to move it to a new, safer location."
In the long run, moving the data center can cut down on ongoing expenses and increase reliability. But there are major cost considerations involved with any data center relocation project. Here's how CIOs can weigh the costs and concerns to round out their plan:
1. Consider site, equipment and human resources costs Phelps says the biggest cost revolves around site selection: "Are you building, buying, leasing? You need good research in that area." As for equipment, Gartner advises that each item be designated for move or retirement and replacement, which helps quantify the cost of relocation. Gartner estimates that mainframes alone can cost $10,000 to $12,000 to move, while servers can cost between $1,000 and $2,500 each to move. Also, additional staffing costs need to be factored in. And while a company might be saving on site costs by moving a data center to a remote area, if staff don't want to relocate or new talent is scarce, that could make a move cost-prohibitive from a human resources perspective.
2. Spend time planning To keep the project on budget, CIOs should work with a multifunctional project team that covers all areas of the data center move -- from IT to human resources or real estate and construction. A detailed plan should include: a comprehensive business case for the relocation, an engineering plan and space design, and power and scalability planning, Phelps says. Additionally, the move likely needs to be staged to avoid downtime that could cut into a company's bottom line. Gartner suggests that organizations "divide the equipment to be moved into distinct move groups that correlate with sequence, placement in the new location, and grouped according to priority or mission criticality."
3. Explore how to go "green" to lower energy costs Electricity and cooling are two of the largest cost centers for any data center. Relocating is an opportunity to control some of these costs -- especially if a CIO commits to going "green" and deploying a more energy-efficient data center.
"You need to think about: How many 'miles per gallon' does your data center get?" says Mark Monroe, a board member at The Green Grid, a nonprofit trade organization that is defining best practices for increasing the energy efficiency of data centers around the world.
From designing a space that is "right-sized" physically to reduce wasted power to using server virtualization to lower the number of overall machines, The Green Grid offers numerous recommendations for efficient data center design. The organization is also working on enabling real-time measurements of data center energy usage to help control costs and environmental impact.
John Tuccillo, another Green Grid spokesman, adds that there is a pay-off for greening data centers -- especially when a company has the luxury of starting fresh with a new location "It does make good business sense: How can you do more with less?" Tuccillo says. "If you increase computing throughput, storage, and networking with less electricity, you reduce your total cost of ownership."
4. Get help from specialists Finally, to get an accurate sense of the cost of relocating a data center, Phelps advises that enterprises consider hiring a third-party consultant to coordinate and plan the relocation. "It is critical enough that a lot of companies are looking for specialists to help them make a move," he says.
And any move should involve a backup plan for each phase to mitigate risk and undo cost. CIOs need to think about, "How long can I afford to be down?" Phelps says.
Courtney Macavinta is a Silicon Valley-based business and technology writer. Her articles have appeared in CNET News, Business 2.0, Red Herring, Wired News, and The Washington Post. She also is managing editor of the online program The Online Family.