I'm looking to constrain the total area of in-house data centers
operated by companies in the U.S. (in square feet).

It's important to make clear if the total includes commercial data
centers (i.e. outsourced data centers, as opposed to in-house).

A data center is defined as a closed room that houses IT equipment,
with reliable/redundant power, controlled temperature and humidity,
fire-detection and suppression.

It is likely someone has surveyed this question directly, at least in
Fortune 1,000 companies (via interviews).  Other possible avenues to
answer this question would be look at shipments during the past few
years of: specialized air conditioners, UPSs, power distribution
units, generators, raised flooring, fire suppression systems, etc.

Happy hunting!
--Ion

"I'm looking to constrain the total area of in-house data centers 
operated by companies in the U.S. (in square feet)."


Answer:

I found no publicly available survey that offered data-center size.
However, I’ve managed to extrapolate the data you need from tidbits of
a very expensive survey I doubt you’ll want to pay for.

According to Tier 1 Research,
http://www.tier1research.com/pdf/samples/monthly_3.pdf, only 3% of IT
infrastructure is outsourced. That is changing, of course, as
evidenced by big contract wins by such companies as IBM Global
Services, Electronic Data Systems, and Affiliate Computer Services.
But the Tier 1 Research survey was current as of early this year, so
we’ll use those numbers.

The survey for which the above link is a sample has all the data
you’ll need. Actually, it’s a package of three surveys for $3,500. One
lists market share by provider, a second offers forecasts for
2002-2005, and a third contains supply and utilization data. You can
buy them individually for $1,500 apiece. This survey is the largest I
could find for the industry, and the data is pretty clean. Of course,
the price is also pretty steep.

However, some of the macro data you want is in another Tier 1 sample
at http://www.tier1research.com/tier1/research/reports/view/?file=/pdf/report_summaries/R-Tier1Bible2c-summary.pdf
and a news release at
http://www.tier1research.com/tier1/media/releases/view/single.html?id=1024536671994.

Here are the important data points:

·	Tier 1 counts 832 outsourcing data centers in operation with 42.4
million gross square feet and 20.9 million operating square feet. This
is down from the prior year. (Tier 1 is confident its data represents
about 95% of the entire Internet data center outsourcing market.)
·	More than half of the data centers are located in the United States.
·	If 20.9 million operating square feet are about 3% of the total
industry, than total data center space is 697 million square feet. If
60% of that is in the United Sates, we’re looking at 418 million
square feet of operating space. That’s a lot of space.

The need for computer-related services remains strong despite the weak
economy, but data center size is not likely to grow as fast as other
benchmarks like industry sales in part because computer don’t need as
much room as they once did. Sources:
http://www.iris.ba.cnr.it/Sustain/sbr_pdf/Energy%20star%20label.pdf
and http://enduse.lbl.gov/Info/Data_Center_Journal_Articl2.pdf.

Other useful sources:

A benchmarking survey with Canadian numbers is available at 
http://www.fmdceducation.com/documents/2002%20survey/Invitation%20CAN%202002.pdf
for $2.500 Canadian. FMC Education will offer a USA benchmark survey
next year.

An interesting study that implies estimates of data-center power use
are too high can be found at
http://enduse.lbl.gov/Info/Data_Center_Journal_Articl2.pdf.

For tips on how to plan construction of the data center, look at
http://www.hostingtech.com/dc/01_07_build.html.



Search terms:

"data center" size survey "square feet"

---

Request for Answer Clarification by ionyad-ga on 22 Nov 2002 15:50 PST

Vercingatorix -

Funny you mention the Tier 1 survey.  I've read the report, and in
part was seeking to validate some numbers.

The report doesn't address my question, however.  Andy estimates 8.5M
racks total, of which 179,000 are outsourced (by the way, about 4M
servers ship each year, so the numbers make sense).  Andy does not
tell you how many of those racks are in in-house data centers.  Most
servers are just sitting in the corner office.

I'm very familiar with the outsourcing data centers - the 832 you
mention.  Andy's estimate is that they sum to 20.9M operational sf. 
The 179,000 racks only occupy perhaps 20% of that space by the way, so
you really don't want to extrapolate the 20.9M amount as you did. 
Just take 20 or 30 sf per rack instead.

In any case, it won't tell you how much in-house data center sf there
is.  I'm sorry I can't accept your answer.

Your earlier comments on the difficulty of defining in-house data
center are certainly correct.  I'm not hoping for a precise answer,
just interesting path to constrain the problem.  To answer Neil's
comment, rooms that house both IT and people don't qualify.  Looking
for area of rooms that had significant improvements made to them
specifically to house computers.

--Ion

---

Clarification of Answer by vercingatorix-ga on 23 Nov 2002 13:31 PST

I’m sorry you weren’t satisfied by my answer, but I didn’t know you’d
already read the Tier 1 study, or that you were trying to back-check
that data. I didn’t use the data on servers, because I couldn’t find a
square-foot-per-server estimate I felt comfortable with. To much
variation. But your question asked for "total area of in-house data
centers," so I used the square footage data in the Tier 1 study. I
could have given you gross square footage, but I actually used
operating square footage because I assumed you wouldn’t be interested
in vacant space. I must admit I didn't consider the fact that much of
the infrastructure was not in data centers.

I do have an alternative method of calculation, though I didn’t use it
in my original answer because it was less precise. I can’t provide you
with an exact number, but I can provide you with a top end for an
estimate and a place to purchase data that will provide a far more
precise answer. According to a 1997 study by the Building Owners and
Managers Association "Experience Exchange Report," cited in a study
about data center energy use at www.iris.ba.cnr.it/Sustain/sbr_pdf/
Energy%20star%20label.pdf, data center space represents less than 1%
of total building area. As servers become smaller and more powerful,
that percentage should, if anything, fall over time.

For more current and exact data on computer-room space, you can buy
the 2002 Experience Exchange Report at
http://www.boma.org/pubs/eer2002bk.htm. It costs $280 for nonmembers.
If that’s a little steep, you can buy the 2001 report (
http://www.boma.org/pubs/eer2001bk.htm ) for $220. Those reports
should provide you with more precise data.

But for now, let’s work with the statistic that less than 1% of space
is devoted to actual data centers. According to Grubb & Ellis (
http://www.grubb-ellis.com/research/WhitePapers/subleasereportrevised-020730.pdf
), total U.S. commercial space available for rent in August was 592
million square feet. The vacancy rate was 16.8% ( citing 
http://www.grubb-ellis.com/PDF/natmrkttrnd/markettrendoffice.pdf ),
suggesting a market size of 3.52 billion square feet.

That would suggest that total corporate data center space is at most
35 million square feet.



Search terms

"data center" square footage
"corporate data center" "square footage"
"corporate data center" percentage "office space"
"corporate data center" percentage "floor space"
"office space" total "united states" "square footage"

Not a perfect answer, but good research led to a valuable pointer. 
Certainly well worth the price.  Would have preferred primary data
rather than reference to a report.

This information may not be available.

The only public data I've seen on the square footage of data-centers
came out when the California energy crisis and the Dot-Com boom
brought worries about the power consumption of ISP and collocation
facilities.  None of these figures would aid in estimating in-house
usage.

In-house data centers can range from clean-rooms, designated in the
building architecture and design, to an office sealed of with
Plexiglas and given an extra AC unit.  The variety and flexibility of
these spaces would make national data difficult to represent.

In-house data centers are also major security risks, so companies
could be inclined to keep information on their existence secret.

National sales figures won't differentiate whether the equipment is
used in-house or at a collocation site.  Even figures on stuff like
raised flooring and Halon systems won't directly tie into in-house
data centers.  Raised flooring in particular is used for many things
besides server rooms.

In-house data centers also often coincide with in-house NOCs (Network
Operations Centers).  Trying to discern how much of the space is a
data-center (that could be potentially relocated) and how much is used
for the NOC (which needs to be local to the users) could be
meaningless.

If the information your looking for is for market analysis or cost
comparisons, there might be better angles to take.

What is the intent?

Would you believe thirty billion square feet? Fine tuning the criteria
will produce exactly that ammout, but I don't know how to do that.
Your 2nd paragraph is not a complete sentence, but I presume you do
not want to include the "out soursed data centers", but these are
typically used partially for in house purposes by these sub
contractors. In some sence most operations are a sort of sub
contractor. Do you want to include telephone soliciters? Computers
that control the cellphone towers, the big dish descrambling services?
Most Southern Bell computers for switching phone calls? Computer
setups that are used by people who answer questions on
www.answers.google, for small retail operations? The SETI screen
savers? Government and DOD computers? You probably do not want to
include computer operations that are primarily for the amusement of
juvinille computer operators, but some class room computer set-ups
would be applicable. A few years ago you could have drawn the line at
main frame computers, but hundreds of PCs are now often linked to do
much the same funtions as old large main frame computers.   Neil