Rich Miller: Carbon Regs Seen Boosting Outsourcing

Will carbon regulation drive companies to relocate their data center operations to third-party providers in colocation and hosting centers? Or even move them offshore? Both options are getting scrutiny following the April 1 onset of the UK’s Carbon Reduction Commitment (CRC). While UK industry groups fear a surge in offshoring, some US industry watchers believe regulation would boost business for monitoring vendors and colocation providers.

Two IT industry groups in the United Kingdom are investigating ways to lower the potential burden on their members who operate data centers, according to ChannelWeb UK. The groups, BCS – The Chartered Institute for IT, and Intellect UK, are researching whether obtaining a side agreement known as a Climate Change Agreement (CCA) would be an “appropriate option” to protect the business interests of data center operators.

Incentive to Outsource?
“The combination of a published league table and increasing financial penalties creates a strong driver to outsource data centers to a third party,” said Liam Newcombe, secretary of the BCS Data Centre Specialist Group. “It also creates direct pressure to offshore existing or new data center capacity, creating a direct risk to value and skills in the UK.”

more of the Data Center Knowledge article from Rich Miller

Alex Carroll

Managing Member at Lifeline Data Centers

Alex, co-owner, is responsible for all real estate, construction and mission critical facilities: hardened buildings, power systems, cooling systems, fire suppression, and environmentals. Alex also manages relationships with the telecommunications providers and has an extensive background in IT infrastructure support, database administration and software design and development. Alex architected Lifeline’s proprietary GRCA system and is hands-on every day in the data center.