DCD CONVERGED LONDON SPEAKERS BOX: VERNE GLOBAL
Datacenter Dynamics
November 4, 2013
By: Penny Jones
FOCUS: So Tate, what is taking place atVerne Global’s data centers at the moment?
Tate Cantrell: We’ve seen two major achievements this year so far. In Q1 we announced we were doubling the capacity of our data center (in Iceland); the momentum that propels this growth shows no sign of slowing. More recently, we announced another major customer win with catastrophe risk modeling giant, RMS choosing to host its new, purpose-built, cloud-based catastrophic risk modeling platform, RMS(one) in our Icelandic campus.
You are talking about outsourcing at the London event. What changes have you seen in regards to outsourcing over the last year?
Specifically at Verne Global, we’ve seen high profile names like RMS and BMW choosing to outsource their data center high performance computing (HPC) applications to us instead of managing them in-house. We expect to see a continuation of this trend, as HPC applications are typically high density, power intense applications with low network latency needs. Outsourcing has become an option for more customers as the service providers move in the direction of industry specific clouds that focus on specific attributes required for optimal performance of a vertical.
How do you think attitudes to outsourcing will change over the coming year?
As hardware and software become more independent from each other in the form of private and public cloud computing its likely outsourcing will continue to be an option for most companies. The price and reliability of European power supplies is also likely to drive outsourcing to new geographic areas. Western European grids are overloaded and power costs are unpredictable and rising. Legislation designed to cut carbon emissions will likely add to the cost. We believe we’ll see a northward trend in outsourcing, with organisations looking to base their data center operations away from their traditional markets and to where energy supplies are bountiful and where the climate facilitates free cooling all year round. Iceland, with its many connectivity options, will be central to this trend.
What do you think will create major change in the industry in the year ahead?
Political posturing around the price, reliability and sustainability of power supplies will have the most influence over the future of the data center market. Today, negotiations with the energy market are a key tenant of all European election manifestos. For example, Angela Merkel has set Germany firmly on the path to nuclear power phase-out, while in the UK, the Labour party has promised to freeze gas and electricity bills for all householders and businesses for 20 months if it wins the 2015 election. These types of policy, which artificially affect supply and demand, will have far reaching effects on the data center industry, one of the biggest consumers of power. The findings of the recent IPCC climate action report are also sure to send ripples at policy level. While we can’t predict what will happen to the Earth, we can predict that, as governments seek to reach ambitious decarbonisation targets, whether through stringent legislation and/or limiting access to depleting traditional energy stores, businesses with traditional data center operations will definitely feel the squeeze.
What is the biggest challenge you think your operations are teams are going to face moving forward?
With the emergence of more and more big data applications and the widespread uptake of cloud services, many businesses are waking up to the fact that they need to find a viable and practical data center solution that balances both their energy costs and environmental concerns. Our challenge is keeping up with this growing demand.