Migration Solutions on BBC Radio 4

Migration Solution’s Managing Director, Alex Rabbetts spoke on BBC Radio 4’s Costing the Earth on Monday evening.

The programme, called Virtual Warming, discusses “the contribution to CO2 emissions of huge ICT data processing warehouses”.

Alex comments on the record of the data centre industry, which he says has been pretty appalling. He says that although we like to think that the industry is solving a lot of the world’s problems, with the likes of internet banking, social networking sites and video conferencing the industry has never looked inwards to the data centre itself.

Data centres use huge amounts of power and pumping huge amounts of heat and CO2 into the atmosphere. Is there something we should be doing better? says Rabbetts, and we need to start looking at the issue now.

Regulation and government requirements are driving the need to store data up and up. The current financial crisis will almost certainly make the requirement to store data even higher with increased auditing. Growth in areas such as on-line shopping, social networking and even the BBC iPlayer is growing the requirement for storage at an exponential rate.

You can hear the full programme via the BBC Radio 4 website’s ‘Listen Again’, or contact Migration Solutions. Migration Solutions is a specialist computer room and data centre specialist offering independent advice on the design, build and operation of data centres and computer rooms. Visit our website at www.migrationsolutions.com.

All that glisters is not Green...

Back at Migration Solutions we're getting ready for the Data Centre World Conference & Expo next week in London (at the Barbican, 24-25 Feb) and, in addition to the usual preparations - which include making sure we have enough business cards, packing the company brochures and shining our shoes - Migration Solutions' MD Alex Rabbetts has been rehearsing for his speaker slot at the conference on a subject he's particularly passionate about. Entitled, 'All that Glisters is not Green: Real World Solutions to Increasing Efficiency, Cutting Costs and Reducing Environmental Impact' (3.15pm on 24 Feb), he sees this as his opportunity to highlight how IT industry greenwash is seriously in danger of spinning itself out of control.

As Alex has been saying for sometime, and now the mainstream media are beginning to pick up on (see Charles Arthur's excellent article in The Guardian: Greenwash? and let's start with that screen) Datacentres are not green and are not likely to be green for the foreseeable future. With some effort however they can be made greener (and btw, better, more efficient and cheaper!). Alex’s point is that Greenwash goes from being mildly amusing to dangerous when the hype starts to numb us to more modest (but real) benefits that can be achieved from the serious and sensible work of making our IT infrastructure greener.

Come along to the Data Centre World conference if you want to hear a great presentation from someone who's 'browned off' with how 'Greenwash' is blinding the industry to the serious solutions that can take the data centre power bill out of the ‘red’ … and reduce emissions too!

Safety First

How safe is your data centre? A full populated 42U cabinet is 2.2 metres tall and IT servers can be 30kg. Would you lift the equivalent of half a teenager above your head without putting some kind of measures in place to protect yourself? Would you ask anyone else to do it for that matter? Health and Safety in the UK has become an area that businesses have to look at more and more carefully to protect their staff, their equipment, and themselves.

Data centres are dangerous places with high density power. Raised floors left open, leaving half a metre deep hole in the floor, are equally dangerous. In fact, there is virtually a trip hazard at every corner.

Do your staff know what to do in case of electric shock? Do your staff know how to lift a floor tile correctly? Is protective footwear used? How many times are removed floor tiles left at the side of of a gaping hole in the floor? Not only causing a trip a hazard, but a trip into the newly created floor void.

In 2007 35.3 in every 100,000 workers in the UK had a slip or trip injury at work. In an ideal world you would always have two people doing every physical job to minimise risk and strain but is this a practical measure?

What about lone working? Do you have man down alarms for lone workers? Do you allow lone working out of business hours?

Data centres are dangerous environments and they are relatively new to the employment world. HSE does cover working in them, but at the moment it seems that not enough data centre managers know their responsibilities as well as they should.

Migration Solutions are experienced data centre operators with a number staff working in a range of facilities in the UK. Migration Solutions also offers vendor independent consultancy and data centre migration.

Mixed reaction to digital plans

Digital Britain, the publication by Lord Carter has been met with huge criticism from politicians and analysts alike. The report, an 86-page document on the future of UK broadband, internet regulation and public service broadcasting, has been described as "weak" and "bitterly disappointing". The public appears to have been looking forward to a document with a clear action plan for Britain’s' digital future, to provide the entire country with high speed internet and a gateway to improving our economy. The report "Digital Britain" highlights many areas in which the UK needs to improve its digital infrastructure to meet the technology demands of the next decade.

The introduction of digital television was one of the first steps taken into upgrading the nation’s infrastructure, but the increasing demand for Internet consumption has led to comparisons being made with other European countries and nations around the world. In Japan, for example, many new homes utilise fire optic technologies for running telephone, Internet and television connections which results in a better, faster service.

What does this mean for data centres? The future can only be positive for the industry as the world increases its reliance on the internet. Bigger connections will lead to increased use, and larger file sizes and as a result higher demand on public and private networks. Net books like the Eee PC and Mini Note have been designed specifically for Internet only use, and appear to be the future of computing if Google and Yahoo are to be believed. These companies along with the likes of Amazon are pushing the future of cloud computing which will require new data centres to be built, new servers being utilised and old data centres requiring a refit to become capable of handling these new technologies.


The new Digital Britain looks likely to feed a further increase in demand for data centres, both private (where storage requirements will continue to increase) and public (where increased reliance on the internet and the services provided will result in even heavier requirements than today).


Migration Solutions are data centre specialists, providing truly independent and impartial advice to customers from all sectors of industry. Visit www.migrationsolutions.com for more about the company and services that we offer.