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Recently I made a presentation about data center infrastructure management software for Schneider Electric at an industry event in Japan. The event was amazingly well attended with over 500 executives from Japanese businesses coming along to listen and to learn about DCIM and its benefits to users.
Perhaps that doesn’t surprise you? After all, the Japanese are legendary for continuous improvement and innovation and their management practices (such as Kaizen) have revolutionized manufacturing around the globe. When you combine this with the fact that the fastest growth in the world for data is happening in Asia (with the Japanese a major consumer of local content), then better ways to manage data centers more efficiently are surely going to be of great interest.
With Japanese data center operators facing similar pressures to their peers in many other countries, what’s pleasing about the high attendance is that it reveals a nation that is actively in pursuit of innovative ways of addressing the challenges which it faces both in business and in wider society. It was a welcome opportunity for us to share our knowledge and experiences on the growth and importance of DCIM with a large group of businesses and executives that are genuinely looking for answers.
Not many years ago, Japan launched a nationwide “Cool Biz” campaign to reduce the use of air conditioning in the workplace. Encouraging staff to wear cooler, looser clothing so that businesses could reduce energy consumption and global warming, the “Cool Biz” initiative was spearheaded by senior government ministers including Prime Minister Koizumi.
I remember at the time that Koizumi’s appearance in public without a suit jacket or tie caused quite a sensation, if not a few shocks in Japan – a country which is steeped in formal culture. Nevertheless, his casual style of dress reinforced the idea of a Nation in it together to cut energy use and emissions. “Cool Biz” has subsequently been joined by “Warm Biz” – a campaign to extend the savings into the colder months by encouraging people to wear sweaters and cook warmer food rather than turning up their thermostats.
It raises the question of whether the data center industry in Japan, and maybe even further beyond, is ready to embrace an industry-wide “Cool Biz” campaign to raise facility temperatures in a bid to reduce their own energy costs and carbon emissions. Certainly organisations like ASHRAE are have already given the green light to operators to do just this (check out this white paper on the Green Grid website: .
DCIM is an essential part of the toolset required for helping businesses apply Cool or Warm Biz principles to their data centers – not just monitoring performance, but having actionable data to help data centers run more efficiently. Like virtually every country, Japan would like to reduce the burden on its national electricity grid, especially in the wake of the accident at Fukushima. A campaign for Data Center Cool Biz and higher inlet temperatures could make a real contribution, and DCIM could be a real enabling technology for a successful outcome.
