The revelation of the layout and evolution trend of data center in foreign countries

Data center, as the backbone of enterprise operation and management, plays an increasingly important role, along with the continuous maturation of new generation communication network technology, the deepening of Internet application, the pace of building and rebuilding data center is accelerated. At present, the total number of global data centers is about 3.5 million, mainly distributed in the United States, Europe, Japan, China and other regions. The number of data centers in the United States and Europe accounts for almost half of the world's total. In recent years, in the cloud computing development upsurge, our country data center construction obviously speeds up, according to incomplete statistics, now already has more than 70 cities to carry on the data center construction and the plan, some data center construction because lacks the overall layout, causes the resource duplication construction, the excessive construction phenomenon already appeared the symptom. It will provide some new ideas and methods for the construction and development of data center in China to analyze the characteristics and evolution trend of data center in foreign countries, draw lessons from the successful experience of foreign data center construction, and promote the construction of data center suitable for the development of China's national conditions.

The number of data centers is decreasing, the monomer scale is increasing

The development of data centers in the United States can be divided into 4 stages: Before 1990, the Government and scientific research applications, commercial applications, data center construction is large but the number is very small. 1991 ~2000 years, due to the emergence of a large number of internet companies, commercial data centers into the initial development, data center construction is small, but the number of significant increase. In the ~2011 of 2001, government information, Internet data, financial transaction data surged, government and business data centers were booming, and large and small data centers were accelerated. Since 2012, with the increasing application of the data center, the data center has entered into the new stage of integration, upgrade and cloud, the large scale, specialization and green are the main features, the number of data centers has been decreasing, but the size of the monomer construction is soaring. By the end of 2010, the United States has more than 2000 square meters of large data centers have more than 570, accounting for about 50% of the total number of large data centers around the world. Similarly, in Europe, although the economic situation in Europe in recent years is not stable, but the size of Europe's data center is steadily increasing, as of 2012, Europe's large data center construction area of nearly 38000 square meters, small data center construction area of nearly 18000 square meters.

Compared to the above data, although the number of data centers in China has been close to 450,000, but more than 90% is still less than 100 square meters of micro-data centers, more than 2000 square meters of large data centers only 50 or so. Data center in this extensive development model, resulting in a large number of information construction infrastructure is difficult to achieve sharing, industry development imbalance, the low utilization of hardware resources.

A clear positioning based on market demand is a key factor in data center location and construction considerations

Data centers in Europe and the United States mainly commercial data centers. By October 2012 18, the United States had 1088 business data centers, including 70 cloud computing data centers. From the regional distribution, mainly distributed in the economically developed western and coastal areas, relatively few inland. In addition, the number of data centers is significantly higher in High-tech industrial clusters and colleges and universities than in other regions, such as the California Business Data Center (TEXAS), which accounts for 14.1% of the US, is the highest in all States, followed by 105 of the second in the United States.

European data centers are mainly distributed in Britain, Germany, France, Holland and other countries. Britain, as an established European power, has a stable economic and political situation, a well-developed ICT industry and one of Europe's leading network nodes, through the Americas, the number of data centers in Europe first, to reach 176. Germany, as one of the most populous countries in Europe and the largest land in the country, although the capital is in Berlin, but its data center mainly in Frankfurt, mainly because Germany's domestic data center backbone node and with other national network nodes are concentrated in Frankfurt. And, in recent years, the scale of German data center construction has been rising, the number has reached 133, began to chase the United Kingdom.

It can be seen that the layout of the commercial data center more respect the choice of the market, the enterprise will first consider the data center after the completion of operations, which customers can provide which services, and according to the different service objects, the level of data center construction and scale will vary. At the same time, under the network basic environment and other factors, the surrounding industry development and market demand will be considered. Therefore, the clear positioning based on market demand is a key factor for enterprises to consider when locating and building data centers.

Figure 1 U.S. business Data Center distribution

Source: Sadie Consultant 2013,01

Large data center to energy enrichment, climate appropriate area migration, energy management has been paid attention to

With the rapid development of Internet application, the deepening of mobile interconnection, the more intense competition of internet value-added services, the large-scale development of data center has become an important foundation to support business expansion and upgrade, meanwhile, it has also brought about a significant increase in operating costs and increasing operating pressure. At the same time, the new generation of information technology integration development and innovation, the data Center service model is also changing, geographical location caused by the service difference is declining. The construction of large Internet data centers has taken into account factors such as land, manpower, hydropower and local policy environment to reduce the cost of data center construction and operation. At present, migrating to high latitudes and energy-rich areas is becoming a new feature of data center layout. Make full use of these areas natural climate conditions, energy endowments, and land, hydropower, tax and other preferential policies, significantly reduce the cost of data center operations. The Netherlands is one of the backbone network nodes in Europe, and with high latitude, low temperature and rich water resources, is becoming one of the most promising data center building in Europe. In the past 5 years, the size of its data center has grown at an average annual rate of 10%, and a large number of companies will be building data centers in the Netherlands in the next 12 months, such as Equinix, Interxion, Evoswitch, Telecity, Colt and other enterprises launched a 2000 square meters of data center construction, the total construction scale will reach 10000 square meters, Servint company also moved its European data center to Amsterdam, Holland.

Figure 2 Netherlands Data Center Distribution

Source: Sadie Consultant 2013,01

In recent years, the energy consumption management of data center has been widely paid attention. Active use of a new generation of green energy-saving technology, reduce data center Pue value, reduce atmospheric carbon dioxide emissions and environmental pollution. If the U.S. data center Pue average between 1.8~1.9, the Internet Data Center will be lower, Facebook's new data center reached 1.05~1.10. But in the energy efficiency control aspect, our country data center energy consumption is generally high, the average energy efficiency Pue value approximately around 2.5~3, the promotion Green data center construction already is imminent.

Table 1 European and American Typical data center energy efficiency control case

Source: Sadie Consultant 2013,01

Implement cloud computing strategy, coordinate data center layout and resource sharing

Cloud computing application and deepening, is driving data center construction and operation management, service mode change. The United States is home to the concept of "cloud computing", and in March 2009 President Barack Obama appointed Vivic Kundra as the U.S. Chief information officer and put cloud computing on the agenda of the U.S. government. In September 2010, the U.S. government unveiled the 25-point plan to reshape the federal government's information technology management, for the first time to use cloud computing to help the federal government save IT spending. The December 2011 issue of the federal government cloud computing strategy, the development of the United States data Center in the future direction, through cloud computing applications to reduce the number of data centers to promote large-scale data centers. The aim of this paper is to solve the problems such as low utilization rate of American federal government e-government infrastructure, decentralization of resource demand, serious system duplication construction, difficult construction management and long construction period. At present, the U.S. government has introduced to promote some business to the commercial Cloud Computing Center transfer framework model, according to this framework, some government business can be gradually outsourced to the commercial cloud computing center. For example, the GSA can spend 6.7 million of dollars hosting the email system at Google's cloud Computing center, and the USDA is handing over 120,000 people's email system to Microsoft.

Similarly, in July 2012, the European Union issued the EU ICT industry Planning 2013, proposed the EU's overall cloud computing strategy and implementation measures. By setting up the Cloud Alliance ECP, developing requirements, standards and solutions, and providing substantial funding to support cloud computing research, the implementation of the plan is expected to resolve 2.5 million EU jobs by 2020, generating a market of 600 billion euros, accounting for the EU GDP.

From the European and American developed Countries data Center layout characteristics and development process, China's data center development level is still in the initial stage of development, the application and deepening of cloud computing will be China's data center development "overtaking" a good opportunity, from the overall layout, we can learn from the successful experience of Europe and America, It is the best way for our government and enterprises to develop, construct and layout data center according to the basic national conditions and geographical characteristics of our country. The layout of China's data center can be considered in the following aspects: 1 attention to planning consulting, carefully assess the data center operating economic costs. Leading large data centers in the west, north and northeast, such as energy enrichment, good climate, less natural disasters in the region deployment, but also optimize the western and northeastern industrial structure, and gradually reduce the east-west economic gap. 2) tamping the basis of the layout, and actively balance the number of data centers and scale development. Combined with the advantages of different regions, the scale of data center construction and application positioning, local conditions to promote the coordinated development of various types of data centers. 3 Strengthen policy guidance, promote good data center ecological environment construction. We will actively promote the construction of regional basic network environment, define the characteristics of area application needs, locate the data center, and guide the quality resources in regional agglomeration and coordinated development through special preferential policies such as land use, electricity consumption and taxation, so as to ensure the sustainable development of the data centers in the region.