Last week we attended the AFCOM Data Center World Global Conference in Las Vegas, Nevada. Needless to say, we were very excited to participate as an exhibitor this year, displaying our new booth, launching the industry’s first  modular containment solution, and presenting on “What’s Next in Cooling?”, all while engaging in many conversations with conference attendees. Although we were very excited to share our latest news and innovations, as well as participate in the ever valuable networking aspect of the conference, there were several other key highlights to note.

At Data Center World, we always make it a point to do a little learning ourselves. And although as the saying goes, “What happens in Vegas, stays in Vegas”, we thought it’d be useful to share what we learned from our experiences at the conference. Here are 4 key takeaways we learned while attending this year’s Data Center World Global Conference…

4 Key Takeaways from Data Center World

1. Approximately only 30% of computing in US data centers supports US users, the balance of approximately 70% supports users throughout the rest of the world.
2. Indirect evaporative cooling is becoming increasingly popular. Several presentations were given that showed the benefits of indirect evaporative cooling. If you are considering alternatives to reducing your operating costs or increase capacity, look into this technology with maturing application to the data center industry.
3. Air filtration in data centers is most often overdone. In a couple of sessions the consideration of reducing operating costs associated with fan motors was discussed. If proper design and management of makeup air systems is followed, then computer rooms require much less filtration than is normally deployed. Computer rooms typically have 1 – 2 air volume turnovers per minute. Reduce or remove filtration on units in redundant zones of the room to reduce operating cost.
4. The concern over magnets in computer rooms is rapidly declining. Driven by the sensitivity of older technology, such as tape storage, many computer rooms once had a policy of no magnets in the computer room. However in our many discussions with users, any previous concerns of magnet use have subsided.

Closing Thoughts

While Data Center World was a big event for us—rolling out new products, displaying our redesigned booth, and meeting with conference attendees— we always enjoy learning new ideas and advancements from other professionals in the industry. We found these key takeaways very informative and educational and we hope that you find them useful and insightful as well.