Kenneth G. Brill on servers' costs

Kenneth G. Brill is executive director of the Uptime Institute in Santa Fe, N.M.

In this Forbes.com article (via Data Center Knowledge), Kenneth Brill analyses the real cost of running a server and the impact of utility and data center costs. Among the most relevant info:

>>The number of servers in the U.S. has grown from 5 million in 2000, to 10 million in 2005, to a projected 15 million in 2010. More servers eat up more electricity and energy costs go up. To avoid future energy shortages caused by increasing IT demands, 10 more power plants need to be built to the tune of $2 billion to $6 billion each and their cost is ultimately going to get passed on to IT through increased utility bills.

Facility costs are often overlooked in the IT investment process. The following table has been developed to present the facility costs for housing, powering and cooling a single $2,500 low-end server in a data center located in an optimal cost location in the U.S.

The figures in this table are remarkable primarily because most organizations have no idea what their facility cost for a single server is. The reason this table is so unique is that the costs shown are constructed from information not found in any single function or department.

Data-center building depreciation is often carried separately from data-center mechanical and electrical equipment. Utility bills often go to a centralized energy function. Site operation costs for technicians, security staff, power and cooling equipment maintenance, property taxes and other costs are often split between facilities and IT budgets. Nowhere is the total picture consolidated.

So the information shown does not typically exist in a single place or function.

--Spending $2,500 on a server really means spending between $8,300 and $15,400 in facility capital to provide the necessary space for housing the server and powering it.

A classic story: One company's IT department decided to invest $22 million in blade servers but forgot to inform facilities. The facility investment required to merely plug-in the blades was an unplanned $54 million. An additional unplanned $30 million was required to run the blades over three years. So what appeared to be a $22 million decision was really an enterprise decision of over $106 million. This is an illustration of why IT and data center facilities need to be merged so the true total cost of computing ownership is better understood.