Should data centers be shut down when power runs out? This consideration by some politicians gave the impetus for founding an industry association in Austria: The Austrian Data Center Association (ADCA) now represents the interests of data center operators in Austria. The first goal is to raise awareness of the importance of infrastructure, because “large parts of the economy and society would no longer function without highly available data centers,” reminds ADCA.
The areas of security and digital sovereignty are also important concerns for the new association. In addition, the organization strives for the economic and legal strengthening of the members and Austria as a location for data centers, not least through cooperation with educational institutions. Founding members are conova communications, Digital Realty (Interxion), eww Itandtel, Next Layer and NTT Global Data Centers EMEA AT (e-shelter). The first president is Martin Madlo, Managing Director of Interxion Austria. He invites other data center operators to take part, including foreign companies that are active in Austria.
“Data centers are like waterworks”
The idea of turning off the power to data centers in the event of a crisis seems absurd to Georg Chytil. He is Deputy President of Austrian Data Center Association and Managing Director of Next Layers. “Data centers are critical infrastructure like waterworks and energy suppliers,” he said in an interview with heise online. “The waterworks also consume electricity, and we don’t turn it off in the event of a crisis.”
Many Austrian companies still have server rooms in-house. Professional data centers are much more efficient: “We data center operators are not the bad guys, we are the good guys. We help to make information technology significantly more energy-efficient,” explained Chytil. The operators are actively striving to keep their energy consumption as low as possible: “We’re not interested in high electricity bills.”
You can expect it yourself, but it’s not energy-efficient.
It is quite possible to intervene to help with electricity crises; for example, certain data centers could turn off the air conditioners for a few minutes, potentially saving the power grid. Redundancies could also be switched off in selected areas, “but everything has to be well prepared and planned”, separately for each data center. Industry-wide regulations are not effective.
Over 100 European data centers have already committed to carbon neutrality, including some ADCA members, noted Chytil. The aim of the Climate Neutral Data Center Pact is to operate European data centers sustainably by 2030 at the latest. The ADCA cites broadband, redundant data lines, more security and better availability as further advantages of using professional data centers instead of in-house server rooms – but this is only possible if there is building space for data centers and networks.
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