Data Center Fight Club - Not the whole story

I love reading Data Center Knowledge, it is by far and away one of the best sources of information about the data center space.  The recent blog about Oracle’s new facility in Utah (drawing from a Wall Street Journal article found here) highlighted the much vaunted rules of the Data Center Fight Club.  But I think I see something else emerging here.   It’s an emerging battle in the Data Center Industry itself.   I see a segment of the industry with firms like Google, Walmart, now Oracle and still others that are still driving significant “secrecy” around what they are doing in the Data Center world.   I see another faction led by Microsoft, Digital Realty Trust, 365 Main, and others that are being more open about their data centers, best practices, and the like.  

It is particularly telling by the fact that the voluntary Data Center Energy Star Program led by the EPA is struggling with getting companies to sign up to share data.  This article references this nicely.  Scanning through my notes from various articles, my attendance at AFCOM, and others I see that those who have publicly announced participation in the Data Center Energy Star (365 Main, Microsoft, some banking institutions)  are all those in the second camp.   Granted the EPA process itself is anonymous and their is no way to tell actual participation so the first camp may be participating as well.  But they aren’t publicly talking about it. 

There are a couple of things I find very humorous here.  First everyone in both camps love to make their announcements of Data Center location selection public and actively pursue government aid in doing so.  I find it disingenuous for the first camp to be “secretive” after locations announced and at least partially funded or otherwise supported in the local communities where they locate.  I also find it humorous that at least on this front “Microsoft” is more “open source” than Google.