For many years, the Uptime Institute has been a reference when it comes to evaluating the state of “health” of data centers around the world.
In an annual survey that in 2022 has had the participation of 800 data center owners and operators and the contribution of 700 CPD suppliers, designers and advisers from all over the world, this Institute offers a more than interesting picture of the situation of a sector that this year is facing interesting problems such as the need to extend the useful life of its equipment technology or the difficulty of finding qualified personnel to respond to an increasingly intense demand for new professional talent.
Here we share with you some of the most interesting findings from this year’s survey.
The useful life of the servers is extended
One of the main conclusions reached by the institute is that the life cycle of servers in company data centers is lengthening, which according to the main manufacturers, is between three and five years.
Thus, while the survey carried out by the UpTime Institute in 2015, only 34% of companies claimed that they tended to use their servers for longer than recommended, this percentage has grown to 52% in 2022.
Among the reasons, we find the semiconductor crisis that in the last two years has affected the technology industry and as a consequence, the increase in prices and delivery times. Smaller companies have been especially affected in this field, which have been forced to postpone the update of non-essential components of their infrastructure.
On the other hand, this could also reflect a slowdown in server energy efficiency improvements. Normally, each new generation of servers usually improves its energy efficiency with respect to the models it replaces, achieving less electricity consumption in the data center as a whole. However, what experts are observing is that in recent years manufacturers (especially those based on Intel architectures) have not been making significant progress in efficiency or performance.
More difficulties in attracting and retaining talent
As the number and size of data centers around the world continues to grow, so do job openings and the need to hire professionals specializing in data center management.
According to Uptime, global staffing needs have grown from 2 million full-time jobs in 2019, to the almost 2.3 million in 2022. Some of these new positions also correspond to new categories that did not exist for just five years and that require highly specialized knowledge.
In this year’s survey, the Institute reflects that 53% of data center operators experienced difficulties in attracting qualified professionals, compared to 47% in 2021 and 38% in 2018. In addition, 42% have reported serious problems in this field, often due to the “signing” of their best employees by the competition. In 2028, only 17% of companies faced a similar situation.
Increases the cost of service interruptions
In general terms, Uptime has detected that the number of service interruptions that data centers have registered in the last year has decreased. In this sense, in 2022 60% of those surveyed declare having suffered at least one interruption in the last three yearscompared to 69% who claimed the same in 2021 and 78% who indicated it in 2020.
However, and despite the lower number of interruptions recorded per center and the lower frequency with which they occur, the total number of them has grown throughout the world, due in large part to the accelerated pace with which they occur. they are building new data centers.
The most worrying fact in this section is that when these interruptions occur, they are generally more expensive. In this sense, the Institute indicates that interruptions costing more than one million dollars have grown considerably.
In this sense, up to 25% of those surveyed have indicated that the cost of their most recent service interruption had exceeded that amount, which represents a growth of ten points compared to 2021. On the other hand, 45% of the participants in this study indicate that the cost has been between 100,000 dollars and one million (47% in 2021).
Energy problems continue to be the main cause of outages
Despite the measures that have been put in place, interruptions in the energy supply continue to represent the main cause that affects the proper functioning of data centers.
This year, supply issues were at the root cause of 44% of incidents. Far behind were network issues (14%), system cooling failures (13%), issues with IT systems themselves (13%), and third-party issues such as SaaS providers, hosting, and clouds (8%).
Lack of monitoring of the environmental impact
Despite the fact that part of the technology industry claims to be committed to its environmental impact, the truth is that a large number of data centers still lack the appropriate tools to be able to measure their energy efficiency and carbon emissions.
Among those surveyed, 63% say they are convinced that the authorities in their region will require them to publicly report environmental data in the next five years; however, only 37% collect and report carbon emissions data (up from 33% in 2021) and only 39% currently report their water consumption (up from 51% in 2021).
New legal requirements will force operators to address these shortcomings and establish more stringent sustainability monitoring and reporting practices in the coming years.
