The days of buying big and growing into your data center are over. Trends such as modular equipment, virtualization and customized cooling mean IT can reduce costs by starting small.

 In the past, companies built data centers like parents buy clothes for their children: Buy big and wait for the kids to grow into them.

However, companies that designed spacious data centers ended up wasting a lot of money, powering unnecessary infrastructure. Today's data-center design decisions all pivot around maximizing efficiency, while giving companies a path for future growth, says Steve Sams, VP of global site and facilities services for IBM (IBM).

"We see our customers make very different design decisions than they used to," Sams says. "And the end result is that they are saving 30 percent in operational costs over the lifetime of the data center."

About four years ago, IBM did an extensive study of contemporary data center designs and found that the three questions that drove design decisions—how reliable, how big and how to satisfy those requirements at the lowest cost—were not enough. IBM, which is building out 200 to 300 data centers every year, observed five other key trends driving design decisions today.(...)

> End of the article on CIO.com