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PEDCA<br/>Pan-European Data Centre Academy

Final Report Summary - PEDCA (PEDCA<br/>Pan-European Data Centre Academy.)

Executive Summary:
The vast majority of the 500 million citizens of the European Union are most probably unaware of the fact that their everyday economic and social wellbeing depends on reliable, secure and efficient data centres and the services they provide.

Data centres are facilities that provide the connectivity hubs, power distribution, operational environment and physical security for all the equipment needed to support our digital age. Data Centres are infrastructures for digital services and in the same way as railway lines and stations are infrastructure for trains, they make no valuable contribution on their own, the value is only generated when they utilised effectively in digital services delivery.

The data centre sector has and is experiencing rapid growth globally, this growth ranges from 5-25% CAGR depending on the region. Energy consumption, service availability, cost and security are the main topics driving investment, innovation and competition within the sector.

The PEDCA research estimates the data centre industry market is worth around €18.85 Billion per annum, the EU Data Centres consume approximately 11.8GW (or 103,368 GWh p.a.) which is around 3% of the total electricity generated across the EU. DC industry market of €18.85 Billion p.a.
Despite reductions over the last decade in the CO2 emissions required to generate electricity, using the 2010 figure of 347g/kWh (including embedded carbon) from the CDC Climate Research Report (Part 4 2014) gives an overall figure of 38.6 million tonnes of CO2 emitted in order to operate the EU’s data centre industry.
If an illustration of the value of the PEDCA objectives were needed, then one should look at what the effects of raising awareness, education and training would be if it resulted in all the EU’s data centres implementing best practices successfully; this scenario would result in energy savings in the region of 15,500GWh in one year, which is almost as much as the total annual amount of energy consumed by 1,000,000 EU household dwellings

This would also save the EU approximately €1.1 billion in electricity costs alone per year and would also drop GHG emissions by 5.4 Mega Tonnes of CO2. However many aspects of training, skills, education, awareness and governance are the barriers to this goal which PEDCA aims to begin to address.
Similar to the factories of the industrial revolution, data centres can be thought of as the factories of the digital revolution, but the key difference is that the output of the factory is controlled by all citizens at work and play, rather than the factory manager. However, energy consumption and carbon emissions are not immune to scrutiny in any section of society, and data centres are no exception. But data centres enable ICT which probably saves more energy than it consumes and there’s no option to for economies that aspire to grow “not to do data”. Therefore the aspects of service reliability, availability, information security and competiveness are just as important as energy consumption and environmental impact issues because the very existence of data centres are equally integrated to these essential functions.
This project is strategic in nature and attempts to provide a platform to underpin the data centre’s future critical role it plays in society and to ensure the EU maintains its leading position. It is becoming urgent for the established data centre businesses, organisations of all types and academic institutions to contribute to R&D, share and develop skills, define and adopt standards and best practice strategies. All of these activities will lead to increased trust of new technology such as cloud computing and encourage collaboration and interoperability. EU states with a less established data centre industry and footprint, but with a need for it to grow can benefit greatly from the knowledge transfer, insight, experience and raised profile.

Through a process of researching the baseline with consultation with stakeholders, this project identifies the key actions and sets out a strategic plan to address these needs.
Project Context and Objectives:
The vision and concept of PEDCA was to build upon the existing collaboration within the data centre industry via the Data Centre Alliance (DCA). The proposal was to establish and make the DCA facility available to all European states focussing on encompassing both higher education, academic researchers, stakeholders and the wider data centre industry. Although the overall objectives of PEDCA remain as priorities when the proposal was written in 2011, by the time of the project kick off in July 2013 the data centre sector has evolved and changed significantly in many areas and regions, resulting in both adding even greater urgency to many aspects but less in some areas which have been developed since 2011.
However the main aims of the project remained as:
• To form a Pan-European Data Centre Academy (PEDCA) that addresses the Digital Agenda objectives for the fast growing DC industry, to drive much needed innovation and creativity in the areas of new technology, skills enhancements and improved practices.
• To improve and enhance Europe’s position of its data centre industry and drive the opportunity for EU businesses to establish and maintain competitive advantages over fast developing new markets overseas.
• To leverage the expertise and skills from Europe’s three main data centre “hotspots” (Germany, UK and The Netherlands) and transfer knowledge and experience to other EU states and international territories with a less established data centre footprint to encourage economic growth, access to digital services and new digital business opportunities.
• To identify key requirements for the development of improved data centres able to support the needs of new generation e-infrastructures, cloud computing and High Performance Computing (HPC).
• To focus R&D on promoting ideas, methods, new technologies, skills and education that address the growing problem of data centre energy consumption and resultant CO² emissions, this is essential for the success of goals communicated in Europe 2020.
• To setup an independent research facility that is networked and expanded to enable trusted visibility and clarity of the problem of DC energy consumption with analysis of the priorities to achieve the goals of EU digital agenda; technology Research and Development, industry Research and development, Training and Education, and Skills Development.
• Disseminate PEDCA’s major results to a wide audience to maximise the exploitation of the work in order to encourage private investment by interfacing PEDCA closely with the business community across Europe.
The Project’s deliverables provide the background to the project and the essential elements to take the results forward and exploit the work to realise its full impact potential. These include:
• Scope (D2.1)
• Regional Analysis (D1.1)
• Training & Research SWOT (D2.2)
• PEDCA Requirements (D2.3)
• Terms of Reference for Expansion (D3.2)
• The Joint Action Plan (D4.1)
• The Business Plan (D5.1)
• Dissemination Report and Roadmap (D6.1)
• Economic Impact Analysis (D7.1)

Project Results:
Establishing the Joint Actions.
The project initialised with consulting with stakeholders on the scope and establishing a participant network of interested stakeholders, which was to grow and expand throughout the project.
The Project then detailed research teams to establish a baseline regional analysis, existing training and research and technology road-mapping.
Following this initial base-lining SWOT analyses and GAP Analyses were developed through surveys, workshops, interviews and regional visits which led to establishing a set of requirements to be addressed by PEDCA.
The requirements were then tested and developed further via consultation activities, for example at the “focus panel” event in London where professional “brainstorming” techniques were utilised to validate the requirements and develop ideas for solutions. This process was repeated in Warsaw and Amsterdam, whilst concurrently publically aired across a wide range of events across the EU conference circuit.
The project also developed some piloting of activities to gain real-world experiences of some of the more complex activities, these included training sessions in Frankfurt, London and Amsterdam, as well as conducting a “dry run” of the certification model for a data centre.
Six Joint actions were identified which underwent further scrutiny from stakeholders and during the last two Focus Panels in Amsterdam and Frankfurt.
Underpinning the Joint Action Plan for Exploitation
A Sustainability study for JAP and specification for its implementation, including business continuity, constitutional set up and business plan was established for all six joint actions. The financial plan produced was built upon a model that can be reconfigured used and reused again as needs and conditions dictate.
PEDCA achieved high visibility from the outset with a presence at many industry and stakeholder events over the 18 months. This enabled the project team to establish and experiment with different approaches to dissemination. The final phase of the project includes a detailed roadmap for dissemination based on these results and experiences.
The final element of measuring impact was based upon establishing real world scenarios aligned to the six joint actions and exploiting the earlier baseline research conducted in the regional analysis, surveys and technology road mapping.
Project results

Identifying the requirements
The Joint Action Plan is derived from the PEDCA’s four pillars of requirements. The four pillars were developed and refined via stakeholder feedback from the basic areas envisioned at the project’s beginning.
All requirements identified and were carefully categorised according to their priority, difficultly, cost and time to delivery. This process allowed the team to maintain a clear focus and ensure integrity of the requirements.
Developing the Strategy
The main focus of this pillar identified problems related to R&D and the general low levels of cohesion of the industry. Many participants felt that there was little consultation to and from research funding bodies and that funding was not targeted correctly. The reasons for this lack of influence in setting the research agenda is due to many reasons; the main ones being the relatively new emerging data centre “industry” which is not easy to define, fragmented groups and associations that represent various interests and aspects of the data centre “industry” and low levels of co-ordination between these groups. Representation of the sector is improving through associations such as the DCA but more needs to be done to focus on the needs of each topic needed to design, construct and operate a data centre successfully. Coordination is also a problem for data centre research; the PEDCA project research highlighted a large number of projects that had been funded, however the results of the majority had not successfully reached a large section of the data centre “industry” nor the conference circuit. Scientific and academic research facilities have historically not been widely involved in the data centre sector. However due to the University of Leeds’ collaboration and assistance in forming the DCA in 2010/11 and its involvement with the PEDCA project, this is now begun to change. Today the university’s School of Mechanical Engineering is receiving project funding from twelve data centre industry organisations actively engaged in developing various independent review and proof of concept projects, which has notably been achieved via word of mouth, reputation and recommendation. Nearly every private or public sector organisation are owners of data centre assets of some shape or form, and cannot be expected to be experts in the complex field of data centre design and management. Although commercial advice is readily available, the PEDCA project research identified many areas where non-commercial trusted information would assist owners of data centres navigate the market more successfully or implement best practices such as the EU code of conduct for data centre energy efficiency.
Developing actions to promote Business Innovation
The data centre sector has evolved considerably within the last decade. Most notable have been wide ranging changes in environmental conditions recommended by the manufacturers of the ICT equipment data centres are designed to contain and manage. In addition, increased in power demand per square meter, increased focus on energy consumption, security and reliability have all contributed to a strong demand for innovative technology and methods to deliver competitive advantage. The fast growing data centre sector has attracted much attention from private investors and equity groups. However, due to the complex technical nature of many of these innovations together with a general lack of understanding of the data centre sector, many business opportunities have not been commercialised or received enough investment to succeed. Participants felt that commercialisation of these innovations could be improved through working with investors and innovators to support them through the proof of concept and ESTD stages, specifically helping with market acceptance and business development processes. Universities and Regional Development Agencies offer many services for commercialisation support such as business incubation facilities, advice for IPR frameworks, export or expansion to new markets, however evidence suggests much of these services have been under exploited by the data centre sector.
The development of standards and policies can help a complex, emerging technology ecosystem such as a data centre and promote the successful commercialisation of new products. Standards can make a difference to the success of innovative businesses by creating a common framework for innovation. Standards set the framework by defining common vocabularies, establishing the essential characteristics of a product or service, and by identifying the best practice within the ecosystems that will ensure successful outcomes. Once, in place, the pace of innovation will be accelerated and success will be much more likely. However standards within the data centre sector are still emerging and generally immature, and not generally reaching a wide enough audience of experts or contributors.
Improving Skills, Training and Education
The landscape of the data centre sector is changing, it is expanding from the densely populated city centres and financial districts and into new areas within countries, and it is expanding from established countries into new regions, which has an impact on the workforce requirements. The PEDCA regional analysis research identified wide difference in training in EU regions, for example participants at the Warsaw focus panel voiced different priorities and attitudes to data centre energy efficiency than the more established data centre communities in London, Frankfurt and Amsterdam. The PEDCA project conducted extensive consultation with employers, training providers and workers throughout the project. Many cited a skills gap, lack of recognition of skills and the need for improved professional development in many areas. It is clear this is moving fast and that a regular regional and gap analysis is needed to keep pace with these changes in order to react to these requirements. A key requirement identified during the research was the need for skills identification and mapping to clarify the requirements against the different sectors of the data centre industry such as service providers of data centres and the various supply chains for data centres involved in design, construction and operation. The research suggested that mapping the skills for a data centre as a whole would be too large a task to attempt as a whole and should be broken down into distinct “professions” or “sectors”. Training and Education are essential for the successful application of standards and policies our research showed that there are problems with this linkage, for example the EU Code of Conduct for Data Centre Energy Efficiency has lacked wide take up of training. In addition, with a large number of standards and metrics on the horizon, take up of the appropriate training will become even more important issue if these standards are to have the desired effect. The commercial training sector has moved forward considerably since 2011 with high quality training and professional development matrices on offer. However take up of training in many sectors still remains low. This alongside the barriers of availability and cost of training at pre-employment levels remains a key issue to address in order to maintain a supply of employable human resources to satisfy demand. The PEDCA project research developed an entry level course which was successfully piloted in three EU regions which can be deployed by industry and academic institutions to address this need. Recognising interchangeable and transferrable skills in many sectors of the data centre is an area of need that was highlighted within the research. In addition, improving staff movement between countries and mapping skills to existing European educational frameworks. Many workers in data centre organisations cited the need for programme development and accreditation to establish policies that could be deployed to address both the take up of training, suitability of skills and encourage new entrants to the industry.
Driving Awareness
Implementing the JAP successfully will require driving awareness programmes to gain involvement and assistance from all stakeholders and policy makers. An essential element of this is to build consensus through dialogue and common interest through a voice for the industry. The PEDCA research evidenced that this was missing due to a combination of emerging sector, political and geographic reasons. Working with the EU Commission and other agencies during the project highlighted the need for the industry to develop solutions and policies aligned with overall governmental goals. The PEDCA project identified that industry led self-regulation through its own quality assurance and processes is the best precursor to policy and is also required to develop the improvements the industry requires. Barriers to adoption and take up of new professionalization initiatives will not be easy, and careful consideration of the cultural change and impact is needed.
The Six Joint Actions
The endorsement and validation of the joint actions have been based entirely on stakeholder knowledge and canvassed opinion. They are shown in the figure below set horizontally against the requirements identified and described earlier in this section. However, all six Joint actions are, to an extent, dependencies of each other and must also work concurrently together. A good deal of the plan has been piloted or at least “road tested” during the project, and therefore does not exist only in theory or “on paper”. This was particularly important in developing the sustainability and financial plan of WP5 which needed to be robustly supported with real world costs and market experience. A notable exception is the Skills Matrices within Joint Action 4 (JA4) which is a task equivalent to the timescales and cost of the entire PEDCA project on its own, it is also unlikely to be either appropriately or successfully with private funds alone.
The joint actions are not numbered in any fixed order of delivery, and therefore appreciation of the whole strategy rather than the individual actions is needed in order to fully understand the overall value.
JA1 Technology Leadership Platform (TLP)

Mission of the Technology Leadership Platform:
In 2011, the DCA took an early lead in forging a working relationship with Academia and the research community. The DCA itself was formed largely as a result of a number of discussion sessions at The University of Leeds. This led to reaching out to other academic institutions and regional government in other high data centre footprint cities and ultimately the establishment of the PEDCA proposal to take the DCA forward and identify its role, agenda and identify what and how the data centre can be improved. During the course of this period and during the project the University of Leeds in particular, has become very active in working on projects with the data centre industry. Specifically, The School of Mechanical Engineering at Leeds has successfully applied its expertise in thermal and heat transfer sciences to the data centre industry. However, many other areas of the data centre design, construction and operation need similar research and development “centres of excellence”. The DCA plans to act as the platform to bring all this together in one place providing a service to industry by acting as a hub or portal for needs identification, research initialisation and exploitation of innovation and dissemination of information that helps users improve data centres.
Clearly to maximise the impact and exploitation potential of publically funded research it needs to be shared prominently with the industry sectors participants. Moreover, research also cannot be targeted correctly without consultation with the experts in the field, nor can the agenda be set without detailed knowledge of what topics have been already funded or addressed. These are the main issues that JA1 aims to address. Together with these themes, the action will also encourage use and development of research facilities and academic support, commercialisation support and a connection point for investors and lastly, a portal to develop trusted information and end user support for fast evolving technology. The Action will disseminate and provide access to data centre research, development and innovation activities by the DC sector for the industry, which would enable better engagement of stakeholders in accessing Research results and activities, products and services and empower them to provide feedback and influence on the research agendas for the DC sector.
The platform will extend the existing DCA website and made available to the existing network of users and will include:
• A directory of data centre research projects
• Profiles of universities and other bodies and research services
• An investor area offering information and resources about the industry
• An area to interactively develop engagement on research initiatives, call notifications, responses, support and critique for proposals.
• Download areas for trusted information and reviews
• A forum area for non-experts and owners of data centre assets
• Information on standards, best practices, KPI’s and guidelines
• Blog and newsletter area

The Joint Action will develop community led collaboration across scientific investigation, academic research and the DC sector to promote investment in the R&D needed to make better data centres.

The TLP will hold regular workshops to support idea generation and foster R&D activities as identified in pillar 2 of the requirements. These could take the form of interactive workshops, sandpit activities or regular roundtable events with publishable outcomes.
The events can also look at the existing or ongoing research output to establish possible routes to exploitation. There would also be an opportunity to link commercialisation and the launching of new ideas to the marketplace as was identified in pillar 2 of the requirements.
The TLP would provide access to designated experts within the membership of PEDCA to solicit review services, which is in line with aspects of the requirements within pillar 1
Once the TLP becomes established, the case studies, activities or community standing should appear in printed magazine. The PEDCA would also aspire to developing a sponsored peer-reviewed open access journal for the dissemination of the novel, non-commercial research and development outputs.
Benefits of JA1
• Focus research agendas to address the sector’s needs,
• Reduce the risk of research duplication and scope cross-over
• Boost DC sector confidence in public funded R&D
• Improve the impact, exploitation and use of research outputs,
• Improve the awareness and take up of “best practice”, new methods and standards through trusted information and advice, helping them to improve their data centres
• Improve connectivity to the academic research and scientific investigation communities (including those outside of the DC sector).
• Encourage investment & commercialisation of innovations
• Link technology organisations that do want to work with universities and research institutions.

JA2 Representation

The Mission of Representation
The PEDCA research has confirmed that the data centre sector is represented by fragmented groups and/or associations that partially represent the sector’s needs. A key dependency of all Joint Actions is to build an industry association membership and network to represent the data centre successfully. The DCA was formed to address this need in 2011, and has been successful in leading the market and delivering many key initiatives and services. The research shows that the DCA is now best placed to fulfil this role, however resource limitations, cultural and geo-political barriers need to be overcome. The Joint Action (JA2) sets out the plan to develop the industry association further. This entails meeting local, national, regional and international needs whilst ensuring neutrality, independence and democracy. Models for constitutional set up, membership, collaboration and affiliation with stakeholder groups have be developed and or field tested. A funding and sustainability plan has been developed through PEDCA and validated with the help of the project’s advisory board. The Joint Action aims to coordinate the sector, increase participation and involve stakeholder groups and other associations to build a stronger more effective collective and collaboration platform for the DC sector through the EU wide realisation of the Joint Actions.
Description:
A successful industry association takes time to establish itself and it must follow rules of engagement via a democratic constitution with its members that promote trust, independence and a concise collective message. Critical to the success of representing the industry or market sector, in this case the data centre “industry”, is the ability to listen to views, engage in dialogue, consult widely and establish common aims and objectives. Advisory boards, technical committees, expert, focus and steering groups must be established in order to establish the correct agenda and ensure it is consistently reviewed and updated. Rules need to be established to promote harmonious and respectful collaboration and well as a democratic and open constitution.
The JA on representation for the PEDCA will:
• Build a non-commercial, non-profit association ensuring neutrality and independence
• Create models for affiliation and collaboration to integrate and align with related associations and stakeholder groups,
• Build on the current DCA model throughout the EU regional clusters to gain subscription revenue to fund the JAP
• Make adjustments to the DCA model it can be aligned with international best practice for not-for-profit organisations of this type
• Engage end user following and general participation
• Build liaison and work programmes with stakeholder groups (e.g. cloud, ICT, Smart cities, cyber-security, etc.)

To encourage more member involvement in both DCA decision making and steering groups to include each of the JAP’s topics. Each year the DCA steering group/topic leader will be asked to consider if there is a contribution to be made to:
- Standards/Guidelines? For example, is there a best practice missing or a gap that needs addressing or a standard that needs improving or updating?
- Research & Development? For example, is there unanswered research question, can R&D funding improve anything and can research councils be better informed?
- Training and skills? For example, does existing training and education meet the needs, is there a skill shortage in any particular area or new skill in short supply?
- Awareness activities? For example, does any aspect of the topic need wider dissemination to any particular stakeholder group or audience?
This will be aligned to an annual event dedicated to DCA members (JA3) to review each group’s output and the group’s activities and goals. This will be at a date to be decided during the summer of 2015.

The Benefits of JA2
• The development of a trusted non-profit organisation – aligned with international best practice
• The affiliation and collaboration with national representative groups and associations
• Increased end user following
• Increased general participation
• Widened participation in JAP
• Coordination of voice for the sector
• Improved outputs from governmental relationships
• Financial sustainability of JAP
• Improved dialogue with stakeholder groups
Better trading relations and opportunities for trade (both inside and outside EU)
JA3 Awareness
Misson
The PEDCA project research highlighted that the data centre sector is misunderstood by many groups. The Data Centre “industry” is not well defined between those that are active within it and those that own data centre assets. Its complex technical nature is also misrepresented or misinterpreted which means it is relatively easy for policy makers and other stakeholders to become confused about the role data centres and their staff play in society or how they can be encouraged or measured. In addition, graduates of schools, colleges and universities are not widely informed of the career opportunity or the skills they should possess to gain employment within this fast growing sector. This joint action will raise awareness of the importance of the DC sector to local and EU economies so that the sector will improve its standing against other high energy demand sectors – with the aim to improve its reputation in the eyes of the government, stakeholders and the public. It will also Introduce employment prospective and reduce current sector challenges of appropriately skilled employees. And finally improve awareness of topics relating to the sector such as energy efficiency, service availability and security.
Description
The Joint Action involves expanding and developing activities that increase the DC sector awareness of users, stakeholders and governmental institutions. This includes a better understanding the DC sector’s strengths or weaknesses within the EU and if applicable the sector of member state(s).
In particular this JA on awareness will
• Develop interfaces, workshops and dissemination material to highlight issues and assist with appropriate policy development
• Promote the career opportunities within the DC sector
• Promote the value of DC training and skills and overcome certain cultural barriers toward training staff.
• Highlight the value of adopting best practices and adoption of standards
• Promote the critical nature of the various types of data centres
• Describe the required interfaces with tiers of government and why collaboration and understanding is so important to the sector. For example what makes smart cities or smart grids smart, how to tackle climate change in smart way, whilst maintaining the appropriate reliability and security of data
• Build upon the work by the DCA/PEDCA on national press and boot camps (related to awareness of job opportunities). With the help of the PEDCA members, facilitate appropriate education of stakeholder groups e.g. energy managers, public sector users and owners of data centre assets in all organisations.
• Utilise and promote trusted information and research gained through the Joint Actions as a whole.

Benefits
This JA has had some development throughout the first 18 months of PEDCA via its dissemination activities (described in D3.2 and D6.2) but further development of this PEDCA JA should lead to the following benefits:
• Improved policy measures
• Improved understanding of the data centre’s role in economic and social groups
• Upskilling of the workforce
• Helping to address cultural barriers to training
• Aligning of the sectors needs with alumni
• Improved uptake of standards and best practices.
• Constructive dialogue between the sector and policy makes,
• More structured employment opportunities and encourage the next generation to engage more readily with the industry,
• A more valued DC sector (via both JA02 and JA03), and
• Improve the sectors use and management of energy to contribute to EU GHG targets – in terms of the word Green, developing the “greening of ICT” and the “greening by ICT” concepts.

JA4 Skills Matrices
Mission
The lifecycle of a data centre requires skills derived from a wide range of scientific, engineering, technical and management disciplines. Developing a “job description” for the data centre sector, similar to, for example Skills for the Information Age (SFIA) is the overall mission for this Joint Action. The PEDCA research showed that, In order to achieve wide acceptance and ensure its useful exploitation, these skills matrices need to be freely accessible within the public domain. However, tackling this task for all types of data centres would require a significant amount of time and resources, due to the myriad of services, components, products and the resulting sheer number of different roles involved in the design, construction, operation and decommissioning of data centres. However, in the absence of skills frameworks that can be referenced, it is not possible develop a complete picture of professional development roadmaps, linkage to education or identify “best practices of staff development and human resources policies. This joint action sets out a plan to develop skills matrices based on priorities and ease of delivery. It is also worth mentioning that this is a key research requirement identified by the PEDCA project, a dependency of JA5 and an urgent candidate topic for a future EU funding call.
Description
The development of the necessary skills matrices would require a concept design of the matrix framework to establish a stakeholder (PEDCA member) mandate and integration (using the SFIA method) to a framework through the validation by representative group(s) of stakeholders and beneficiaries. The framework would identify all skills, levels, categories, knowledge, experience, qualifications and industry roles for initial development of a functional matrix version based on the SFIA method. In order to create a sense of ownership amongst beneficiaries a programme of regular Reviews, awareness PR, gathering of endorsements and the provision of a user support contact point. The aim would be to tackle specific clearly industry sectors clearly defined by scope. This would allow the integration of any existing work and also ensure risks are minimised and manageable. The project recommends the commercial sector as the first matrix based on a number of criteria relating to priority, size of the task and potential impact.

Benefits
Stakeholder feedback suggests that having open and vendor neutral criterial for hiring of the workforce would be beneficial. So if this could be funded directly via appropriate fund holders then this JA would deliver:
a) A framework for developing open and non-commercial skills matrices,
b) Matrices of skills for the various job roles within the sector,
c) A strategy for maintaining such skills matrices in a fast moving technology and cost environment, and
d) “Job descriptions” for the DC sector.
Enabling the sector to improve the matching of the skills of the workforce with the needs of the industry will also impact other areas where an industry-wide joint approach is beneficial. Impacted areas are research and development, centres of excellence, but also the alignment with education and training development (education and training matrix).
JA5 Training Curriculum
Mission
Our research showed that many people working within the data centre sector have developed expertise in their field but are not recognised specifically recognised for their data centre specific skill set. Training organisations have moved to address this gap, particularly within design and technical roles, but these need both encouragement and bolstering to promote better uptake, interoperability and recognition. However contribution to the development of training curricula is required by industry employees and employers via a professional association to ensure training practices are encouraged or in some cases made mandatory requirements for entry. This joint action sets out that contribution to which aims to improve the performance of Data Centres with respect to service availability, security, energy efficiency and operational professionalism through training and education. This involves developing the Pan-European DCA to become a professional institution that can facilitate the training JA.
Description
Training programmes that are currently available, include
● CNET
● DCProfessional,
● Distance MSc via the EISTER project
● DCA data centre “esstential” courses
● EPI
● 5Hart
The joint action involves ultilising its membership network gained through JA2 to develop the skills matrices in JA4. However, in defining the skills required, the JA can identify the best methods to acquire them through working with training organisations and educational institutes. The professional association arm of the Pan – European DCA membership will provide the dual role of defining standards of training (learning outcomes etc.) and safeguarding the public interest in enforcing these standards where appropriate. The Professional Association will also provide a role for employees of data centres in ensuring their particular skill set is both recognised and transferrable.

By aligning this joint action with the activities of the JAP training can be updated where nesscary to reflect fast moving technological development and standards.
Stakeholder input on training was diverse from the need for an MSC curriculum to CPD for the M&E/IT Engineer through to top-up training for technicians.
Benefits
The proposition of JA5 is dependent on the output of JA4, however combined the JA will deliver
• Increased pool of skilled and trained professionals
• Raising the standard of training and professional development will improve the European data centre industry profile and reputation for increased competitiveness
• More trained people actively contributing to standards, best practices and operational professionalism.
• Reduction in recruitment costs and improved staff retention
• Better visibility of the professional development career path for new entrants and employees
• Improving the European knowledge economy and technical know-how
• Improved confidence of end users of data centres contributing to JA6

JA6 Standards, Best Practices & Certifications
Mission
The PEDCA Project found low engagement and awareness of standards development activities, a small core group is active but the wide ranging subject matter needs more organisations to commit resources to standards development activities. The PEDCA project also found problems with recognised best practices such as the EU code of Conduct, where issues including for example; awareness, management and engagement were cited as issues. However, the main problems stemmed from the lack of governance in the field over data centre credentials relating to self-assessed purchasing and selection criteria, which at best is due to ignorance of how these credentials are arrived at or at worst misrepresentation of a particular standard or metric to gain a competitive advantage.
The Objective of this Joint Action is threefold, connecting experts to standards development activities, assisting with the uptake of best practices, such as the EU Code of Conduct, creation of a Data Centre Certification Scheme, providing a harmonised set of standards and best practices, to independently verify and improve the performance of Data Centres concerning:
• resilience class
• site physical security
• energy efficiency
• operational professionalism
The Certifications scheme was developed to respond to fragmented, sometimes conflicting data centre benchmarks where little or no governance is applied. In addition currently available schemes do not cover the “whole” data centre, or address the deceptive use of benchmark metrics. Data centre investors, customers and clients often evidenced confusion when faced with this situation.
Description
The JA’s threefold activities are:
1. Integrate and connect stakeholders to standards and best practice development of the JAP.
2. Develop actions to improve take up of the EU Code of Conduct by providing case studies, tools, resources and advice and guidance via JA1. The JA will develop actions to assist with administration and support tasks to help improve take up rates.
3. Develop a Certification Scheme utilising the DCA pilot model already initiated by the DCA. launched in June 2014, the scheme has undertaken a proof of concept external audit of a data centre and has a well defined roadmap that mapped against best practices for certification schemes (ISO27021:2005) This JA is to develop the service to meet the needs of a Pan-European scheme set up with the appropriate quality assurance board and management process.
The certification scheme concentrates on defining the
● Resilience class
● Site physical security and access control
● Energy efficiency
● Operational professionalism
The “golden rules” around the development of the scheme demanded it to be Independent, transparent, non-commercial, affordable for wide adoption and to reflect “real” standards both existing and those under development. It should also be easily understood by non-experts, customers of data centres and trusted. This demanded carefully looking at existing certification schemes such as those delivered by SMK and best practice for schemes of this nature, ISO17012:2005.

Benefits
● improved value proposition to end users of data centres creating more customer trust and lowers end user risk
● lower risk for builders and investors
● improving Europe’s data centre industry profile and reputation
● improves the EU sector’s competitiveness
● reduced barriers to Cloud adoption
● encourages take up of policies and standards
● financial incentives could apply to certified data centres (e.g. insurance discounts)
● easier to demonstrate compliance to other related Standards
● helps contribute towards a ‘sustainable cloud’
● easier to demonstrate compliance to energy and environmental standards

Potential Impact:
During the 18 months of the project the consortium has managed establish a network both within NL, DE and UK and also in many other EU states who engaged in the subject matter of the project for the very first time, however the focus of the research wasn’t just to develop an ambitious JAP on paper and then leave it for someone else to tackle the implementation; in many areas, the project utilised real-world testing and developed existing scenarios and experiences to underpin the research activities of the JAP.
The project exceeded all success criteria KPIs as described in the Description of Works (DOW), including number of collaborating EU countries, private sector organisations, universities and Regional Development Agencies who participated on the project.
The motivations to exploit the JAP are considerable, even when taking the extremely cautious approach to economic impact assessment, the numbers represent a large opportunity: The PEDCA research estimates the data centre industry market is worth around €18.85 Billion per annum, the EU Data Centres consume approximately 11.8GW (or 103,368 GWh p.a.) which is around 3% of the total electricity generated across the EU. Despite reductions over the last decade in the CO2 emissions required to generate electricity, using the 2010 figure of 347g/kWh (including embedded carbon) from the CDC Climate Research Report (Part 4 2014) gives an overall figure of 38.6 Million tonnes of CO2 emitted in order to operate the EU’s data centre industry.
However using a conservative forecast of 5% growth and assuming a modest level success factor of 1% and an approach calculated on low baselines impacts of the Joint Action Plan over 6 years hold a significant potential for delivering growth contributions of up to €1.24billion GDP, delivering Carbon savings of 5 million tonnes and over 9000 jobs created or preserved, for an investment of less than €2.0m. In summary impact baselines of PEDCA are as follows:
• No impact counted in year 1 (2015), despite progress being underway
• A 1% overall cumulative effect of impact year on year
• Cumulative Impact calculated over 1-6 years
• Illustrations provided for a flat line of growth and an assumed 5% growth (CAGR)
This section looks at how the existing activities have been developed and the new directions taken, together with the planned exploitation and expected impact of the research results
Exploiting PEDCA and taking it forwards
Technology Leadership Platform (JA1)
Many dependencies of this joint action are already established through the work of PEDCA, these include:
• Fully operational “members platform” portal, with trained staff able to develop pages, content, blogs, forums and related social media integration.
• An initial network of Universities and academic research institutions that are willing to participate.
• A council of technical steering groups with industry and stakeholder participants are set up within the DCA, these are undergoing the process of being re-organised to supply regular (annual) contributions to the Research and development agenda, standards and best practices and other JA’s such as skills, training and awareness.
• Contributory interfaces and membership of Standards Committees and Best Practice groups both at International and European level are established.
• Lists of existing and past data centre related publically funded R&D are established, links with some of the coordinators are established.
• Investor and private funding organisations have shown interest in the DCA’s activities, for example, Lombard plc joined as members of DCA during 2013.
• Relations with some funding bodies such as Innovate UK have been initialised through PEDCA
• A network of, and access to further audiences of “end users” are established via media partnerships, “end users” are organisations without active commercial interests in the data centre sector who own or manage data centre assets, i.e. all other private and public sector organisations.
The exploitation of JA1 will begin with finalising the design of the TLP and construction of the pages, then integrating the services outlined below.
The next phase will be engaged in raising awareness of the TLP. Being technical in nature but also requiring strategic thinking the TLP will develop awareness marketing to attract participation to Data Centre technical experts and consultants, Research Councils and funding bodies, the scientific community outside of data centre sector and private funding and investor groups.
The final ongoing phase will require regular updating and communication. It is envisaged to use the annual DCA symposium to regularly update the community of the TLP’s activities.
Impact of JA1
Impact of JA1 contributes 40% of the total impact of the PEDCA project mainly through promoting the adoption and commercialisation of high performance energy technology, standards and methodologies, as well as coordinating research and development activities.

Representation (JA2)
A good start has been made in exploiting PEDCA to expand and enhance the DCA initiative launched in 2011. Membership and the participant network has increased exponentially, however the work of PEDCA must now be fully exploited in order to fully realise the investment in time and resources by both the EU and the project beneficiaries. Establishing members that are willing to contribute funding for the JAP via membership requires a robust value proposition. Much of this is in place already, which together with the natural enhancements that the JAP brings, will make this more compelling. However, together with the risks of fast expansion that any organisation faces, cultural, geographical, language and political barriers remain to be overcome in order to truly represent Europe’s data centre sector as a whole or realising the wider ambition of representing the sector internationally. As a result of the PEDCA project initialisation of member groups in Netherlands, Germany, Poland, Romania, Finland, Sweden, The Middle East and USA has begun.
The DCA is able to provide members with a robust value proposition based on two aspects, firstly Public Relations and awareness of the member’s organisations and individuals; and secondly activities that improve the data centre sectors’s business climate as a whole. It is expected that each stage of implementation of the JAP will improve this value proposition further and enable further member acquisition to fund the next phase thus organically growing and sustaining the organisation.
The main initial exploitation of JA2 includes:
• Initialising member acquisition campaigns to follow up all contacts and inviting them to become members of DCA and growing the community.
• Working with other groups to explore National chapters and affiliations in other countries, e.g. ECO in Germany and DAA in The Netherlands.
• Implementing national language versions of the DCA website, starting with the Netherlands
• Enhancing the constitution of the DCA as defined by the PEDCA results (D5.1)
• Developing the member “voice” as defined by the PEDCA results (D4.1) e.g. group infrastructure and data bases.
• Integrating “end users” into the community as defined by the PEDCA results (D4.1)
Impact of JA2
The project did not identify any direct or measurable economic impact to GDP, Energy or GHG that could be derived from this joint action on its own. However the resulting growth of the Pan European DCA is a key dependency of the overall JAP, and the action contributes to industry cohesion which can be measured by the number of stakeholders joining and benefiting from the industry body.
Awareness (JA3)
This joint action is closely related to JA2 in that it involves influencing various audiences in order to reach beneficial outcomes. This may include but is not limited to the activities of the industry itself, educational aspects, career opportunities, energy efficiency strategies, improvement initiatives. This is required in order to support and sustain the Pan-European implementation of the Joint Action Plan. During the research many organisations expressed the importance of these activities by the DCA, which will be exploited further in the following areas:
Mainstream Media
The DCA initialised publications in the “New Statesman” in UK and “Fenceworks” Netherlands, these are useful for raising the profile of the industry and its issues. The UK publication for example, proved a key instrument in influencing government policy by highlighting for example where misaligned financial incentives could damage the industry’s growth. Further activities raising awareness in the mainstream media or other related sectors will be undertaken under JA2.
Data Centre Alliance Journal
The DCA operates a Journal hosted within the industry publication “Data Centre Solutions” which has over 100,000 subscribers across Europe. In addition to providing regular DCA updates, the DCA solicits articles of a thought leadership and educational style from its membership for inclusion in the publication. This has proved extremely popular and is gaining in prominence, the DCA has recently (December 2014) agreed to provide a similar activity within “Inside Networks Middle East” as part of the plan to reach further international participants.
Online social media
The DCA utilises Linkedin and Twitter on a daily basis. The PEDCA project enabled the hiring of a Membership Services trainee who has the daily task of managing this on behalf of DCA members ensuring their social media activities are both mirrored, enhanced and complimented by the DCA online resources. In addition to these channels, the DCA operates a social networking via functionality built into its member’s portal data-central.org which provides functionality to embed Twitter and other popular social media feeds. As a result of feedback during the PEDCA project, the DCA is currently investigating an “App” for smartphones and tablets to provide better community integration, which is currently at prototype.
Working with policy makers
The DCA has a good early track record in establishing working relations with politicians, governmental departments and policy making groups. Having established a productive dialogue with UK ministers and MP’s this has resulted in developing work with departments representing Energy, Business, Innovation & Skills and Trade and Investment. At European level the DCA has played a positive role in conjunction with DG Connect and the other EU research initiatives. It is hoped that much of the results of PEDCA will play a beneficial role in shaping policy and assisting with its implementation.
Working with Academia schools and colleges
The PEDCA project has played a significant role in raising the profile of industry’s skills and human resources needs. The three “Bootcamp” training sessions has provided the materials, experience and know-how to deliver an recognised “entry ticket” for the industry, close co-ordination to JA4 and JA5 provides the opportunity to solve problems experienced in addressing the skills gap and the future generation of data centre workers. PEDCA has established an informed network of EU educational institutions to enable these activities to take place.
Developing dialogue with “end users”
“End users” are defined as organisations who are not engaged in business interests dedicated to designing, constructing or operating data centres. Put another way, they are organisations that provide another private or public sector product or service. The vast majority of these organisations will own or operate some amount of data centre assets, but can be regarded as non-experts in this field. Therefore it is a key activity of this joint action to educate and influence this audience in order to raise awareness of technologies and methodologies that can deliver improvements in reliability, security and energy efficiency of data centres. These could include for example, best practices, standards, product and or service sectors of the industry to encourage take up.
Working with other stakeholder groups
The data centre is an integrated system which involves a myriad of stakeholders. Although the PEDCA project adopted a well-defined scope for the research. The research highlighted the need to ensure silo’s were broken and a collaboration and cross pollination of ideas are established.
The DCA has signed various strategic partner agreements with stakeholder industry associations with the aim of sharing work plans, establishing joint activities and knowledge sharing. Target groups include those with cloud, buildings, storage, energy, engineering, telecommunications, end user and scientific groups.
Events and Conferences
The PEDCA project’s timeline coincided with an upturn in the number of commercial events and conferences that feature or are dedicated to the data centre sector. The experience of the researchers attending these commercial events indicated an over-supply, with a correction likely to be seen which may result in the combining of subject matter, the discontinuation or scaling down of some events and or specialisation of certain aspects over the short term. Against this backdrop, the research showed that dedicated non-commercial dissemination events best suit the needs of the JAP. For 2015 an annual DCA symposium is the preferred method to disseminate the activities and work of the JAP/DCA.
Impact of JA3
The project research showed that industry participants saw actions that improved knowledge and awareness of stakeholders an essential role of the PAN European DCA. The role of successfully communicating routes to data centre improvement to new markets, policy makers and “end user” audiences was strongly supported and linked to economic impact. Therefore a 40% of the overall impact contribution is assigned to this joint action.
Skills matrices (JA4)
The PEDCA research has identified this action as a key initiative, but also as the only action where a no accessible work exists that can be built upon. Training organisations have successfully mapped technical role based training to professional development frameworks in conjunction with BTECH which being recognised in more than 80 countries worldwide, which is a notable step forward for the sector. However the PEDCA project identified a need for a full evaluation of skills matrices that can be open to all, including training companies, industry participants, employers and stakeholders to both contribute to and use. Due to the sheer volume of skills and roles involved. The Task in hand is considerable and only manageable if broken down in to self-contained sections. The project considers the data centre service provider sector as the priority, because it is less complex, has high profile and the most urgent need.
Implementation of this joint action will commence during 2015 but is restricted by resources/funding. During 2015, workshops setting out the priorities as well as launching workshops in accordance with data centre service provider participants. A report will be communicated to the Commission to provide any additional information on the recommendation for a funding call in this area.
Impact of JA4
Clearly this action is a dependency for the exploitation of JA5 therefore, the consortium did not assign any economic impact for JA4. However this is a research requirement finding of the PEDCA project.
Training Policies (JA5)
The DCA will work to raise awareness of the value of training and encourage its take up. However this is not enough alone to overcome, cultural barriers and the low uptake and availability of training in some sectors of the industry identified by the PECDCA project. The DCA itself does not wish to become commercially active in the delivery of training and aspires to remain neutral during the selection of training organisations. However, the role of this joint action is to establish a body to set standards of quality, professional development and assist with complimentary activities to strengthen both commercial training institutes, academia, schools and colleges. Although in the medium and long term it will be necessary to realise the output of JA4, the PEDCA project produced a training course for Entry level staff that can be immediately exploited and established as the industry recognised requirement for entry level employees of the industry. This plan can be implemented during 2015 by working with the training providers, universities and employers utilising the cost structure developed in WP5. In the short term other training courses can be developed to assist with the urgent uptake of energy efficiency best practices. Other JA’s particularly JA6 is also a useful tool for specifying requirements for training policies and ensuring appropriate skills are present within the data centre.

Starting with entry level course developed within PEDCA, the action aims to develop a standardised curricula that integrates both the various developing technologies, methodologies and standards across the data centre industry, but also the workers and experts in the field. This will naturally develop more input and ownership from the industry and subsequent take up of training. The overall effect will be for the Pan European DCA to fulfil the role of a “professional association” to fit alongside its “Industry association” role.

Impact of JA5

Upskilling the workforce of data centres is a key contributor to all economic impact scenarios, however due to the missing dependencies needed to move this action to maturity, we have only assigned a small contribution to the overall impact of PEDCA of 10%.

Standards, Best practices and Certifications (JA6)
The overall plan for JA6 is to improve engagement in the standards by raising the profile of best practices by recognising them when and where they have been successfully implemented. During the PEDCA project the DCA launched both its Certification scheme and became an Endorsing industry association for the EU Code of Conduct for Data Centre Energy Efficiency. The action has been piloted successfully in the field and is market ready.
Exploitation of JA6 has already commenced with the recruitment of four DCA Approved Auditors, most recently Keysource during December 2014. The completion of the first DCA Certified data centre has been completed as part of the PEDCA project which will soon be announced.
Further exploitation of this JA includes delivering the action plan for the EU Code of Conduct which includes developing services, promotion activities and resources designed to improve and widen the uptake and implementation of energy efficiency in data centres.

Impact of JA6:
Developing industry accepted policies and governance of best practices & standards is the “glue” that holds together the JAP as a whole, as well as serving as an important mechanism to deliver the actions output as added market value for the participants. However, delivery across the EU will take time and resources and it is no simple task to fulfil. Therefore the overall impact contribution reflect this at 10% of the overall impact of PEDCA.


List of Websites:
www.pedca.eu
www.data-central.org/?page=PEDCADownloads
Contact:- Simon Campbell-Whyte. simoncw@datacentrealliance.org