With 800 attendees and 190 exhibits the conference got moving quickly with keynote, presentations and the first of two exhibit hall sessions. As the focus of AFCOM is data center physical infrastructure, the majority of power delivery, cooling and cabinet manufactures are well represented. I haven't run into anything revolutionary , but a few cooling/cabinet vendors have some interesting new lines. A few people who dropped by reported that a vendor had a running server submerged in cooling fluid, but I couldn't verify or track it down.
I met with Mission Critical publications and discussed the merits of managing utility power as part of a company supply chain and HPs smaller form-factor (20ft) DC containers. I think the smaller units can get some traction, particularly with IT executives who see it aligning with their own server technology deployment life-cycle. My discussion with Data Center News covered the challenges of bringing IT and Facilities together in DC initiatives and what kind of sourcing choices we see enterprise customers making today.
I was encouraged by the number of attendees today, but by the end of the day, it seemed only marginally improved from last year. We spoke with dozens of folks regarding their DC initiatives and challenges and was a bit surprised at the number of active DC deployment projects. There was also a couple of new entries for the 'best state to build your data center' competition with Missouri and S. Dakota economic development agencies exhibiting this year. Very few IT providers present with HP the only tier -1 provider and they had a relatively small footprint.
