Having a safe and secure environment for your critical data assets is your number one priority during a relocation.
The future state of infrastructure management and operations within organizations can be difficult to predict. Tucker Gladhill, Director, JK Technology Services, sat down with a panel of experts in the industry at Bisnow Dice East 2022 to discuss what’s next for the mature technology market in Northern Virginia that is particularly impacting the data center market. There was no doubt that the COVID-19 pandemic and external forces have changed the way we think about infrastructure and operations.
Here are the takeaways from the panel discussion:
- Staffing shortages, specifically finding talent equipped with the skillset to deploy new technology quickly and efficiently, are impacting the data center community just as staffing shortages are an issue in many industries across the country.
- Supply chain challenges caused by OEM backlogs are expected to result in more investment in cloud platforms by large and emerging players in the cloud space. Operating under such tight constraints created hardship, yet offered lessons for operations going forward.
- Measurable standards and frameworks demonstrate how data centers can give back, as can be noted by standards developed for the industry. These include Telecommunications Industry Association (TIA) standards, including TR 60 ICT Lifecycle Management; TR 42 Telecommunications Cabling System; and TIA-942 Telecommunications Infrastructure Standards for Data Centers, all of which Gladhill is helping author amendments.
- Leveraging software tools, both that are currently installed and those that are in market, is needed. The industry is running into an issue of not having staffed the software/data side of things appropriately and could be taking advantage of the potential of existing software tools. These tools can optimize staff based on collected data, and the questions arise as to how to take advantage of machine-learning capabilities and what personnel-staff expertise is required.
Other data center expert panelists that contributed to the discussion included:
- Mukul Anand, Global Director, Applied HVAC, Johnson Controls
- Terry Rodgers, VP, Commissioning and Building Analytics, JLL
- Troy Hill, Director, Data Center Operations, Iron Mountain Data Centers
- Matt Stansberry, VP, North America, Uptime Institute
- Alex Rakow, Sustainability Leader, Cloud Service Providers, Schneider Electric
Tucker Gladhill and JK Technology Services have worked to launch end-to-end solutions addressing challenges around operating under new constraints and sustainability, as well as providing trained professionals to support an operations team with new deployment, site selection, scalability, physical relocation of equipment, and more. Tucker can be reached at: Tucker.Gladhill@jkmoving.com