The Data Center Frontier Executive Roundtable features insights from industry executives with lengthy experience in the data center industry. Here’s a look at the insights from Jason Mendenhall of Switch SUPERNAP.
JASON MENDENHALL, Switch SUPERNAP
Jason Mendenhall is Executive Vice President of Cloud for Switch SUPERNAP, a global technology solutions company, headquartered in Las Vegas, Nevada, and built on the intelligent and sustainable growth of the Internet. Jason is responsible for overseeing the SUPERNAP cloud continuum, which delivers the most comprehensive technology and cloud ecosystem in the market to SUPERNAP clients and partners.
Here’s the full text of Jason Mendenhall’s insights from our Executive Roundtable for the second quarter of 2016:
Data Center Frontier: In the first half of 2016 we’ve seen unusually strong demand for wholesale data center space from cloud builders and Internet enterprises. Is this a short-term phenomenon, or is cloud growth fueling a long-term shift toward larger requirements?
Jason Mendenhall: It’s difficult to predict the future of technology simply because most of the time it’s wrong and almost always underestimated. One thing that can be said is that its growth is primarily being driven at a regional level with the goal to bring cloud resources closer to customers. The dev-test use case for cloud is close to maturity, and for the past several years, enterprises have been determining the role that the large-scale clouds will play in their technology strategy. Early adopters have realized that large-scale public clouds are an ‘and’ not an ‘or’ in their overall approach to solving business problems. In many cases, they have determined that at a relatively small scale, a private cloud integrated with a public cloud achieves better economics and efficiencies than just selecting one or the other.
Keeping this approach in mind, the integration of large-scale public clouds with private infrastructure, or even private managed clouds, is becoming a driving force in the growth of cloud services. New cloud connectivity industries are evolving and organizations like the Cloud Native Computing Foundation (CNCF) are developing standards to support this type of architecture and large-scale providers are recognizing that having a regional presence is important. The most relevant element to develop from these innovations is the importance of the superscale technology ecosystem. By providing scale to support large-scale cloud providers, as well as world class data centers to support private deployments, they become the ideal provider of true hybrid deployments.
Another factor observed is the role data sovereignty is playing. Not only are large-scale providers looking to support low-latency hybrid solutions, but they are looking to ensure that regulations do not limit commerce. After England’s referendum to leave the EU, it’s clear that there is a psychology present that is driving further need for localized deployments.[clickToTweet tweet=”Jason Mendenhall: Smart cities, autonomous systems & connected homes will drive the need for more infrastructure. ” quote=”Jason Mendenhall: Smart cities, autonomous systems & connected homes will drive the need for more infrastructure. “]
Not to be ignored is the looming wave of connected devices that will begin to permeate the planet. Smart cities, autonomous systems, advanced manufacturing and the connected home will continue to drive the need for more infrastructure. At the core of all of this is the same infrastructure that has been used for decades: humans interacting with applications that run on operating systems that are connected to servers and storage that sit somewhere. For instance, IoT, mobile, web, client server, mainframe and more all operate under that same paradigm. The “somewhere” is quickly becoming more critical from a resiliency, scale and efficiency standpoint and industry leaders are rapidly executing to meet that burgeoning need.
Since advanced technology has been around, a continuous cycle of computing methods—centralized to distributed—has been observed. In each evolution, the role of centralized resources and distributed methods never really dissipates. In short, compute is evolving to act more like the real world. Similar to how human bodies house a protected, centralized location to make sense of sensory inputs along with localized processors and data collectors at the edge, technology infrastructure is evolving to make sense of this new connected world.
Two of the SUPERNAP data centers in Las Vegas, with the mountains in the background.
Data Center Frontier: A growing number of data center providers are embracing renewable energy. Is it becoming easier to procure renewables at a scale and price that makes sense for data centers? Which approaches hold the most promise?
Jason Mendenhall: With absolute certainty it can be shared that moving forward “green washing” will not be a sustainable approach for data center providers. Providers who are predominantly real estate developers will lose out to the ever increasing sophisticated buyer that truly understands the energy market. Furthermore, buyers want to ensure that their technology footprint is driven by a true renewable energy driven data center.
This is not to say that the data center requires a renewable energy source attached to the building. The successful data center provider has the scale to engage in active partnerships and commit to fund new renewable energy projects. However, this requires scale, sophistication and an unwavering commitment from senior management to make it part of company culture, business philosophy and pledge to operate sustainably.
For instance, Switch is building a 180 MW solar project, which will enable its Nevada SUPERNAP data centers to operate on 100 percent clean and renewable energy. Additionally, when Switch chose to expand into Grand Rapids, Michigan, one of its major site selection criteria was access to renewable energy sources, which is why since day one it’s operating the new West Michigan SUPERNAP data center campus on 100 percent renewable energy.
Soon enough, data centers powered by renewable energy will not just be a nice to have, but will be a requirement for all enterprises. In fact, recent statistics indicate that we have will have 50 billion devices connected to the Internet by 2020, which translates to approximately 200 GW required just to support the devices. The industry must take a leadership role in driving true renewable energy solutions for their customers.
A power room inside the SUPERNAP campus in Las Vegas. Switch today confirmed plans for a $5 billion Michigan data center campus. (Photo: Switch)
Data Center Frontier: In recent years, the data center industry has made solid progress on energy efficiency. What are the most promising opportunities and strategies for continued improvement?
Jason Mendenhall: To a certain extent, the statement ‘solid progress’ is questionable. Customers who may be lacking industry insight are placing a tremendous weight on certain data center efficiency indicators like PUE, WUE and CUE without truly understanding the application of those measurements. Providers then find themselves ‘massaging’ the numbers to match the buyer’s expectations even if they may appear to be unreasonable. Goal-worthy intentions end up turning into marketing numbers rather than true measurements of performance. Some data center providers may employ practices that lower the resiliency of the environment and put the longevity of their gear at risk. It’s imperative that the conversation shift from only efficiency to a focus on sustainability and that requires a longer term view of the impact that data centers have on the planet.[clickToTweet tweet=”Jason Mendenhall: The conversation must shift from efficiency to a longer term view of the impact of data centers.” quote=”Jason Mendenhall: The conversation must shift from efficiency to a longer term view of the impact of data centers.”]
All aspects of a data center should be considered: construction, operations, site selection, hardware use, power and cooling strategies and using products and materials that are sustainable across the entire life cycle of the building itself. Although the industry enjoys discussing ‘technology debt’ it often forgets to elaborate on environment debt. Instead of thinking in short three to five year cycles, good data center providers are forward-thinking in 99 year cycles to protect future generations.
Consider a data center environment that can extend the life of equipment by 30 to 40 percent. Ultimately, this has the potential to reduce waste, overall expenditures and avoid the environmentally costly effort of refreshing any equipment within the data center.
Today, premier data center providers have a holistic story on sustainability that goes beyond only a few metrics. Savvy buyers will take the time to understand this benefit and learn to incorporate it into their own technology strategy.
Data Center Frontier: New technologies like the Internet of Things, virtual reality and artificial intelligence are generating excitement in the technology world. What are the implications of these new technologies for the data center sector?
Jason Mendenhall: Despite thinking that advancing efforts in virtualization and containerized computing will shrink infrastructure footprints, history has demonstrated otherwise. The failure to realize that technological innovation increases efficiency will also enable the next wave of its advancement.
The application frameworks that drive these new technologies will be more efficient in their use of infrastructure and require higher density platforms and data facilities will need to be able to effectively support them. Industry leaders who understand this concept can effectively demonstrate how their decisions today become the future-proof solutions of tomorrow.
Conclusively, all of these trends point to one thing, a future that will be absolutely fantastic. Innovations in infrastructure delivery will make possible the technologies that will impact lives and improve the human condition.