“No trees were killed in the sending of this message, but a large number of electrons were terribly inconvenienced.” It’s a funny email signature, but how many inconvenienced electrons does it take to power the internet?

In 2011, the digital universe, or the amount of information created and replicated, reached 1.8 trillion gigabytes, and this digital universe is doubling in size every two years. Much of that digital information is housed in data centers around the world, and running these data centers requires a huge amount of electrical energy.

A 10-megawatt (MW) data center can use the energy of a small town at a cost of around $300,000 a month. Couple that with the fact that there are over 500,000 data centers in the world, according to Emerson Network Power, and we’re talking about 2% of all electrical energy used globally. So, running the internet uses upwards of 406 terawatts per year, assuming 20.3 petawatt-hours as the world’s annual electrical energy consumption.

The odd thing is that in traditional data centers, only half of the energy consumed is useful for running the digital universe: powering the servers that hold our emails, social networking profiles, and the like. The other half of the energy goes into cooling those servers, or it’s lost as heat when electricity is changed between alternating current (AC) and direct current (DC).

What are the 4 trends driving the future of Data Center infrastructure design and management?

Click here to read the full energy usage article

The SmartRow infrastructure solution solves a problem all too common to IT management:  addressing IT needs without building new data center space. Think of the SmartRow approach as a data center in a row--a simple, fully integrated row-based infrastructure.  The SmartRow offering combines up to 10 data center racks--with precision cooling, UPSs, power management, monitoring and control technologies, and fire suppression--all in an enclosed system.

"We did not have to build a special computer room to install the SmartRow", Todd Bayley, Technical Architect-Network Information Technology Department, Pasco County, FL

Learn more here!

Trellis may refer to:

1. An architectural structure often used to support plants

2. A special kind of graph, often used in coding

3. A lattice

4. Quantization, a method of improving data compression, often used in video compression

5. An outodoor garden frame which can be used for partitioning a common area 

6. A trestle, a bridge that consists of a number of short spans

In the Data Center world - the Trellis platform represents a groundbreaking innovation from Emerson Network Power - one that bridges the gap between IT and Facilities.  Trellis helps IT and Facilities connect, communicate and control all assets within the data center.  The intelligence build into the platform allows you to execute decisions in real-time and then immedidately validate and assess the impact on your critical infrastructure.

Learn more about Data Center Infrastructure Management & Trellis at the DVL event on May 9 or 10:

DCIM is getting the IT infrastructure layer and the physical infrastructure layer to operate as one.  It's essentially virtualizing the physical infrastructure, just like what has happened to the IT infrastructure layer.  Covering this gap is very broad, so in order for that to happen you still need to draw boudaries.  What is your DCIM strategy?

The DCIM market is moving full steam ahead.  Steve Hassell, president of Emerson's DCIM division, Avocent, and Kevin Brown, VP of Data Center Global Offer at Schneider Electric, put their top DCIM questions to each other in this Data Center Infrastructure Management discussion.

Check out the questions below.

What are you hearing from CIOs as to the critical needs driving them to better manage their physical infrastructure and integrate that with the logical systems infrastructure?

How does a customer get started with a DCIM implementation?

Traditional data center design practices have involved several levels of power margins resulting in stranded capacity and lower efficiency.  How can DCIM help recapture some of that capacity without compromising availability?

>View the full discussion now" target="_blank">>>View the full discussion now

DVL and Emerson Network Power hosted a Data Center Infrastructure Management Seminar at the Microsoft Technology Center on Friday (2/24/12) - we had a great turnout and discussion. If you missed the seminar, click here to check out the presentation.

IT and facilities organizations have invested heavily in technology resources (people, processes, and tools) to manage the data center infrastructure, they have failed to achieve the promise and potential due to critical gaps between their data center facilities and IT infrastructure components. A new perspective on managing the critical infrastructure gaps is emerging that recognizes:

• The importance of 'real-time' data to understand the true capacity of available infrastructure
• The criticality of interdependencies between logical and physical layers
• The need for holistic management capabilities and visibility of IT and facilities infrastructures
• The need for more powerful management tools that offer a rich, visual view of the infrastructure and can guide design and change management 

>> Check out the FOUR TRENDS Driving the Future of Data Center Infrastructure Design and Management.