Data center operators have no doubt that demand will continue to grow strongly in the coming years, but that comes with challenges. Again, the staff is a crucial factor.

The cloud is someone else’s computer, but who is that other? Cloud providers are also increasingly asking themselves this question. Studies by BCS show that it is becoming increasingly difficult for operators to find suitable staff to operate their data centers. After all, 98 percent of those surveyed assume that it will be difficult to fill all vacancies in the coming years. That’s annoying, as the same data center providers are convinced that demand for their services will only increase in the future.

A heat network or not?

There is also not enough electricity. Data centers are greedy consumers, and in a world that wants to go green, that’s a problem. Operators are therefore striving for greater efficiency and less waste. For example, using the residual heat generated by the servers in a data center is gradually becoming the standard. Google recently announced a new data center in our country, in which the residual heat is to be used for a heating network, for example.

However, 63 percent of those questioned doubt the profitability of such initiatives. In addition to providers and local administrators, the respondents also included developers and investors. The latter in particular are not convinced of the economic benefit of heat reuse. One of the problems is that the residual heat is not enough to support a heating network alone. This requires an additional heat pump, which then consumes energy itself. This makes the entire question of the efficiency of heat use much more complex.

other challenges

Although the components are becoming more and more efficient, the higher density in the data center with increasing demand will also lead to an increase in energy consumption in the coming years. Higher energy prices continue to drive the shift towards more efficient hardware.

Construction costs for new sites have stabilized and materials are becoming available again, but certain data center-specific components remain scarce. Respondents in particular have difficulty finding enough UPS hardware, and cooling is also relatively rare.