Guidehouse Insights Report Finds New Data Center Tools Can Enable Power Markets to Challenge IT Norms

New technologies enable lower costs, greater reliability, and more environmentally friendly power sources />

BOULDER, Colo.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--#ITsolutions--A new report from Guidehouse Insights examines power industry innovations expected to lower the costs and emissions associated with data centers while increasing IT reliability.

Data centers source most of their power through the local power grid. The utility provides a connection and data centers draw power as needed and then pay bills based on a fixed price. However, recent changes, pioneered by the largest facilities—called hyperscale data centers—can lead to lower costs, higher reliability, and lower emissions. These changes include technology and pricing options among utilities, new support systems used by data centers, and services offered by utilities.

“The data processing industry has made great progress in managing power usage since 2010 and has kept power demand roughly flat while data processing demand has continued to accelerate,” says William Hughes, principal research analyst with Guidehouse Insights. “Building on this momentum, several approaches in development are in different phases of testing and implementation that promise to minimize costs and reduce carbon emissions while enabling the data center to achieve its critical availability goals.”

To meet the goals of both industries, Guidehouse Insights recommends that data centers actively embrace the evolving power environment. IT solutions vendors should build interfaces and then partnerships, while utilities should partner with data centers within their territory.

The report, Data Centers: Anticipating Changes in the Power Ecosystem, discusses how organizations shifting processing loads to the cloud are using new strategies to maintain positive trends. This report reviews data center approaches to changes in the power ecosystem and presents the benefits and challenges of these efforts. Successful integration of innovative new technology shows promise for stakeholders and has the potential to enable lower costs for both data centers and the power value chain by shifting loads to low cost and more environmentally friendly power sources. An executive summary of the report is available for free download on the Guidehouse Insights website.