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 Rob Rockwood of Sabey Data Centers.
ROB ROCKWOOD, Sabey Data Centers
Rob Rockwood serves as President of Sabey Data Centers and has been with the company for four years. Prior to joining Sabey, he served at CoreSite from 2001-2014 finishing as a Senior Vice President and General Manager. After graduating from West Point and serving in the US Army, Rob earned masters degrees in construction management and public administration from the University of Illinois and Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government, respectively. Rob draws on his training and experience as a soldier and business leader to build teams that create the very best opportunities for customers and employees to grow and prosper. He lives with his wife Meg in Northern Virginia.
Here’s the full text of Rob Rockwood’s insights from our Executive Roundtable:
Data Center Frontier: Is liquid cooling gaining traction? What are the key factors that will guide whether liquid cooling technologies see greater adoption?
Rob Rockwood: Liquid cooling is gaining traction, but necessity will drive adoption, rather than improvements in liquid cooling technology. Increasingly, entities will optimize processing for profitable and fast-growing applications by increasing watts per square foot. As those ratios begin to exceed air cooling capabilities, liquid cooling will become the only option.
Data Center Frontier: Cloud, colo, on-premises and edge … deployment options abound. What trends are you seeing in where customers are deploying workloads, and how are these decisions changing?
Rob Rockwood: More than edge or on-premises deployments, customer core deployments are seeking efficient, renewable power sources at scale. Network service providers are increasingly expanding networks to enable points of public cloud access for these deployments.
Data Center Frontier: After several years of active discussion of diversity and inclusion, how is the data center industry doing? What additional steps are needed to make a bigger difference?
Rob Rockwood: The data center industry has been among the most purposeful and successful in addressing workforce diversity. In an industry that lends itself to on-the-job training and promotion up through the ranks, companies like Sabey have hired leadership trainers to specifically facilitate this process. This mobility allows employees of any demographic to join data center organizations at entry levels across security, operations, sales, and IT and progress as far as their drive will take them.
Data center companies should grow partnerships that encourage data center-related educational programs at nearby institutions and improve diversity and inclusion at large in their communities.
Data Center Frontier: Will microgrids play a larger role as the data center industry addresses power constraints in some key markets? What problems could they address?
Rob Rockwood: Utility-generated power is overtaxed in certain markets, and microgrids can serve to augment these sources on a semi-temporary basis. Further, renewable microgrids will play a significant role as providers seek to deliver sustainable power “behind the meter.”