Manos: The Impact of Data Center Regulation

Many thanks to Michael Manos of Digital Realty Trust and all the Data Center Knowledge readers who participated in yesterday's live Chiller Side Chat. I thought many of the questions were excellent, and gave Mike an opportunity to share his perspectives on a variety of topics, including data center cooling, power distribution, containers, flywheels, design and data center regulation.

Given the number of participants, we couldn't get to all the questions, but you'll likely have another chance. "One thing is for sure is that we will try to do another one of those given the amount of unanswered questions," Mike writes at Loose Bolts. " I have already been receiving some great ideas on how to possibly structure these moving forward."

Mike has additional thoughts on environmental regulation and how it will impact data center operations, and has put together a video primer on data center regulation at the Digital Realty Trust web site. Although data centers may not be targeted by regulation, they will most certainly be affected by them, and Manos outlines some of the impacts that may not be obvious to data center operators. One paradox: data centers get more efficient when they use more power, but proposed regulations focus on volume, rather than efficiency. There are also challenges for multi-nationals who may face differnet coimpliance requirements across their data center footprint. The video runs 12 minutes, and you'll need to register for the Digital Realty Information Library to access it.