Blind construction of data center leads to waste of resources

"Twelve-Five" plan outlines, accelerate the construction of broadband, integration, security, ubiquitous next generation of national information infrastructure, promote the integration of information and industrialization, promote economic and social information in various fields.

As of March 2012, there are about 430,000 data centers in China, including more than 900 operating data centers.

All over the construction planning, data center market demand continues to grow

At present, the state has approved Beijing, Shanghai, Wuxi, Shenzhen, Hangzhou five cities for the cloud computing model city. According to reports, the government has invested in the construction of the scale of the cloud computing center over 10, and some places are in intensive construction planning.

2011 Global IDC (Internet Data Center) market to maintain a steady growth trend, the overall market size reached 22.26 billion U.S. dollars, the growth rate of 21.5%. "China IDC Circle General Manager Chao said, in the domestic based on cloud computing data Center Construction further advancement, become the Government park focus on the introduction, to the IDC market to bring sustained demand growth." 2011 China IDC Market Size reached 17.08 billion yuan, an increase of 67.1%. "The IDC market is expected to reach 21.56 billion yuan this year." ”

Data center construction is in full swing, it is of great significance to create new economic growth points for local development, improve informatization level, lead related software industry development, accelerate industrialization and information fusion, change the mode of economic development, and promote the transformation and upgrading of industrial adjustment. For a competitive enterprise, as a government partner, can have the opportunity to do large-scale orders, in order to occupy more business opportunities and resources, in the competition to occupy the opportunity.

In addition, China Computer Users Association room equipment Application Branch senior engineer Song that, from the industry point of view, the data center to the industry as a basis to maximize the realization of information sharing, eliminate the "island of Information"; It focuses on cloud computing resources, can realize the maximization of computing resources; and green environmental protection, Can effectively reduce operating costs.

"Data center not only green environmental protection, good to avoid the air, river pollution, but also to build cloud computing industry chain, driving the surrounding industry development has an important role." For High-tech Parks, it is easy to gather High-tech enterprises and industrial groups. Therefore, the cost of the enterprise to enter the park will be greatly reduced. "said Zhang, a researcher at the Chinese Academy of Sciences.

Industry insiders believe that the government to build data center has two internal driving force: one is the need for governmental coordination. The development of e-government in China has long lacked the top-level design, the planning lags behind the construction, even the information silo is difficult to share, not only can not meet the basic needs of enterprises and citizens one-stop service, but also difficult to embody the collective will and action of the Government. The construction of large data center can effectively integrate it architecture and strip network, form a unified service center and support platform, realize information sharing, and provide high quality foundation support for government affairs coordination, finally realize transition to service-oriented government; second, disaster tolerance and backup need. Informatization plays an increasingly important role in government, and the value of information assets is more and more high, especially in the case of frequent disasters, the larger the data center, the greater the risk of carrying data. As the most effective technical means to control the risk of data center, disaster tolerance and backup are widely used. Therefore, to unify the data of multiple departments to a central point, building a unified disaster tolerance and backup center is not only an inevitable requirement of information construction, but also an effective means to avoid duplication of construction and reduce investment.

Blind construction, easy to cause waste of resources

Some places actively respond to the country's industrial policies, make full use of local energy, climate, hydropower and other resources, advance planning, reasonable layout, accelerate the transformation of the local economic structure. However, some places did not start from the reality, lack of long-term planning, at the expense of local energy resources, to do a lot of duplication of construction, inevitably caused the industry concern.

Governments around the world have started to build data centers, not one-sided thinking of overheating or too cold. But from the operational point of view, the current number of data centers are sufficient, duplication of construction, easy to cause waste of resources. An industry personage who declined to be named said that the vacancy rate of the non-profit data center is close to 40%, and the distribution among the industries is uneven, and the construction of the data centers such as universities, meteorological departments, research institutes and petroleum exploration can not meet the actual demand.

"The country's support for strategic emerging industries has made local governments more serious about cloud computing and data center construction." However, Chao admits that China's existing data centers account for around 12% of the world, with more than 500 large data centers representing only 5% of the world's largest data centers, but large U.S. data centers account for 50% of the world's largest data centers.

Data centers also face many challenges. Chao said, such as energy consumption, heat dissipation, how to make the data center more efficient, green, reliable, intelligent. "The lack of differentiation in the data center's business should also be a concern." ”

Survey shows that, according to a certain scale of more than 200 IDC room statistics survey, IDC room mainly distributed in Beijing, Shanghai, Zhejiang, Guangdong and other regions. The spatial layout of China's data center is unreasonable, and the industrial pattern of complementary advantages has not been formed in east, Middle and west.

"Some governments are motivated by propaganda and political achievement, China, not from the local reality, playing the guise of High-tech development, to the relevant departments for financial resources, land resources, blind construction, herd; In some places cloud computing into cloud property, this phenomenon is worth vigilance." "Zhang said.

According to reports, in response to the blind construction of the data center, China's Ministry of Industry and Information Technology Minister Wei also issued an early warning, foreign cloud computing is mainly the integration of existing server resources, the idle resources to integrate, set up a virtual data center. But many places in China are often millions of new servers, there is a lot of blindness.

From the reality, design a unique model to promote local economic transformation

Experts said that the construction of data center on local output value, GDP has a certain pull, but if not from the local reality, the construction scale is too large, the outlook is too optimistic, and excessive equipment purchase, to a certain extent, will cause land, electricity, water and other resources waste.

To this end, Chen Wenguang, a professor of computer science and technology at Tsinghua University, suggested that the local government should start from reality and avoid herd in the construction of data centers. Comprehensive consideration of local climate conditions and infrastructure conditions: if the local temperature is high and humid, not conducive to heat dissipation, it is necessary to use other methods of cooling the possibility of a significant increase; if the electricity resources, water resources lack, no doubt increase the cost of operation and maintenance. Internet infrastructure, High-tech talent and other factors are also the Government must consider the issue. "In addition, enterprises in the construction process, to do law-abiding business, can not arbitrarily change land use, to prevent cloud computing center into cloud real estate." ”

"In the construction of data centers, it is important to combine local advantages, design a unique business model, choose a way to promote local economic restructuring, reduce costs, improve efficiency of the method and ideas, while using their own advantages, according to the development of new derivative services." "Zhang said.

Industry insiders point out that the government needs to remain rational. On the one hand, to build a service-oriented government as the goal, for the development of their own business needs of the data center for unified planning, strengthen the top design, effective display of data center synergy value; On the other hand, the establishment of scientific and sound data center management policy, reasonable layout, forming the eastern, central and western complementary industrial pattern, Further strengthen the support for enterprises, improve the Government's hatching function, create a fair and orderly competitive environment, so that enterprises become the market competition, avoid in the business offside, management vacancy.

Song said: "In practical applications, the Government should really get through the ' islands of information ', not only to consider the real challenges, but also to consider improving the management of the data center, rather than for the achievement or publicity needs, chanting slogan, blindly seeking large." ”

(editor: Heritage)