“A Data Center Manager’s Life is Chaotic”

That’s because what’s ‘urgent’ assumes priority and then things get executed in a haphazard manner,
says Henry Hsu, Director Global Power & Architecture, Raritan

Henry Hsu is Director Global Power & Architecture, Raritan Inc, USA. He was in India recently and we caught up with him for a chat. Hsu has been in the IT hardware space since 2001. Before that he had been a software scientist upon completing his education from Stanford University. In this interview, he discusses the biggest challenges facing data center managers today. He starts by telling us how things have changed in the data center space over the past decade.

Two Major Changes That Have Impacted Data Center Management

“There are two major changes happening with data centers. First, there’s a general move towards co-location, both wholesale co-location as well as retail co-location. And, there is recognition that the data center is a specialized piece of real estate, for which one needs to leverage different types of tools and expertise,” says Hsu.

Hsu says the other key change is related to technology management. “For data centers, it’s not just about CPU performance; there's the energy layer, as well as thousands of users to administer. That increases the complexity for data center managers. So nowadays the focus has shifted toward the management of technology.”

In fact, according to Hsu if you were to ask data center managers to describe their lives, they are likely to label it ‘chaotic’. That’s because what is ‘urgent’ assumes priority at the data center and then things get executed in a haphazard manner. 

“All data center managers want to do a better job at managing their facilities.  And the biggest constraint they face is the fact that they’re only human. For instance, if they have 3-5 projects to work on, they must prioritize so that they get the maximum value out of it for the business,” says Hsu.

So is there a personnel challenge as well, we ask?

“Not at all. The human element of the data center space is one of the most encouraging aspects. There is a lot of hard work that goes into managing a business critical data center. There’s even a high degree of collaboration between competitors; they share information, which is virtually unheard of in any other vertical. So I think the real challenge for them is how to manage technology resources most efficiently.”

The Three Biggest Data Center Management Challenges

Hsu believes three of the biggest challenges data center managers grapple with are energy monitoring, capacity management, and change management. Energy monitoring is a big challenge due to the number of devices and power densities found throughout the data center. It can be difficult to accurately track energy usage across multiple devices that are from several different vendors.

Then there is the element of change management. “If a server needs to be added, it’s likely being tracked in a rudimentary way like Excel which is inadequate for mapping the power chain and provisioning equipment. This makes the process slow and chaotic. And as chaos increases, it becomes difficult to accurately manage your capacity,” says Hsu.

Similarly, change management can become a nightmare to deal with. “Often it happens that the people at the data center could be from outsourced teams. If servers are being moved, or added, or screwed in, no one’s tracking the changes in an accurate way. And in the course of a year, no one really remembers the changes that were made either. It’s a ludicrous environment to be working in,” says Hsu.

The Technology to Improve Data Center Management Already Exists

Hsu believes that the implementing the right solution helps data center managers deal with the aforementioned technology management challenges. For instance, intelligent power distribution units (PDUs) help data center managers to monitor and manage energy throughout the data center by providing individual outlet level power metering.  Data center infrastructure management (DCIM) software can eliminate the complexity of manually managing capacity and change with automated asset tracking via intelligent asset tags and sensors.

Additionally, smart PDUs and energy management software make it easier to implement cost saving measures like agentless graceful shutdown and energy billback reports. Hsu says this is critical because CIOs are increasingly demanding that their data center managers find ways to deliver more value with less money. That’s especially true when it comes to lowering energy consumption and costs.

“As a data center manager, it’s in your best interest to have devices automatically cycle off during non-working hours, and implement an energy billback system. Yes there’s a big move to co-location data centers. But you don’t have to physically be present in the data center to handle those things, you just need to enable your equipment to audit energy use and bill your customers accordingly,” says Hsu.

Hsu Offers Advice to Aspiring Data Center Professionals

Despite his passion and advocacy for technologies that make the data center a much less chaotic place, Hsu believes that data center management is really about the people who work behind the scenes to make the things we take for granted like enterprise applications, on-demand streaming, and real-time queries, a reality.  Hsu offers the following advice for aspiring data center professionals:

“It’s important to have depth of knowledge of your specialization in the data center space. But it’s equally as important to have breadth of knowledge too. The data center is a complex integrated environment. It’s worth your effort to learn about all of the interrelated challenges and available solutions. And it’s not difficult to do. It’s not that you must have all the right answers in all the domains, but it’s important to have a good understanding of them in order to address the challenges that arise. So keep developing your skillset, and find the time and discipline to go and learn.”