Bill Clebsch is talking about the results of the data center survey of CSG folks.
There was 100% response from the CSG schools.
60% of the data centers were over 20 years old. 36% answered their facilities are 11-20 years old. That means that 96% are over 11 years old!
Intel says it’s not worth investing in data centers over 8 years old. Intel is fond now of buying old supermarkets for data centers because they have high ceilings. They’re also using two foot raised ceilings and cooling to 66 degrees instead of 68.
39% have 10-20k sq ft of usable space; 36% have 5-10k sq ft.
Bill notes that the older faculty, who bring in much of the money, have an “anthrpomorphic” relationship with their computer – want to be able to touch it. Younger faculty don’t care.
There’s a 50-50 split on wehther facilities are centrally funded or have rates for usage. It’s hard to incent researchers to come into the data center – they perceive the space in their own buildings as “free”.
The majority have no required standards in place for data center equipment.
Everybody’s looking for more – floor space, power, etc
50% are planning expansions of 51-75% more floor space.
Most people are expecting 11-20 years of use from new facilities.
Many people are using consultants to help plan – it’s important to find an consultant that understands high performance computing.
Current allocations for research and academic computing are low in data centers (64% allocate less than 25% of existing space), but future needs are thought to be very high (36% plan to allocate 26-50%, 29% plan to allocate 51-75%).
2/3 of respondents have some level of colocation service. 1/3 offer a service where faculty buy into large “condo” clusters.
There’s some discussion of whether there are ways for groups of institutions to collaborate on backing each other up for disaster recovery.
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