The latest electricity price increase has put additional pressure on businesses, and on IT departments in particular.
Since 2008, electricity prices in SA have increased by more than 170%. And the upward trend continues. The National Energy Regulator of SA (NERSA) recently granted power utility Eskom an 8% average increase per annum over the next five years.
"The Eskom crisis will force data centre operators to revise their models in order to stay afloat," says Guy Willner, founder of the International Data Centre Group (IDC-G) and Teraco Data Environments board member.
According to Lex van Wyk, CEO of Teraco Data Environments, these hikes place immense pressure on business. For most companies, says Van Wyk, IT resources are accountable for roughly 50% of total energy usage expenditure.
"The reintroduction of rolling blackouts, the lack of maintenance and planning, and the shortfall in South African energy is top of mind and threatens business feasibility and employment in general," says Van Wyk.
For Van Wyk, data centre colocation needs to be considered. Willner agrees. "Internationally, over the last decade, we've seen the pricing model for colocation data centres change almost completely from a footprint model to that of power. Floor space is now almost completely irrelevant, and power - and its guaranteed availability - is the ultimate commodity traded," Willner says, noting that power is the real cost in the data centre.
Power usage effectiveness (PUE) is a measure of how efficiently a data centre environment uses its power, and more specifically, how much of the power is used by the computing equipment, says Van Wyk. "With a keen eye on efficiencies, alongside investments in power-efficient technologies, elements like cooling, virtualisation and colocation all become contributors to economies of scale."
Van Wyk believes data centres need to embrace infrastructure sharing, connectivity and efficient power management in order to build a competitive IT industry in SA. "Outsourcing of data centres still provides a substantial saving on operational and capex expenditure, and might be one of the only solutions to combat the continued price increases," he says.
"Power is a scarce and expensive resource, and by managing it carefully in a larger environment, one can get the benefits derived from economies of scale. With the correct focus and tools, there are also advantages in managing the power supply all the way to server-cabinet level," concludes Van Wyk.
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