The Gartner Data Center Conference kicked off this morning in Las Vegas. Despite the completely packed plane coming out here, Vegas seems quieter and not so crowded. The bartender at Wolfgang Puck’s Bistro told me they were looking forward to the 1800 people coming to this show to fill the hotel up. As we’ve noted, the economic crisis is impacting business travel all around.

22% of the attendees at Data Center come from the public sector and government, with 44% coming from very large enterprises of 20K+ employees.

During the Gartner IOM conference in June, some of the most interesting info coming out of it was the quick polls of the audience on a variety of infrastructure and operations management topics. What are enterprises doing? Where are they headed? What’s important to them? Here are some quick takes from the opening session:

1) What is the largest data center challenge that you currently face?

• Smaller Budgets: 21%
• Power & Cooling: 20%
• Dealing with the Rate of Technology Change: 15%
• Aligning Activities with the Business: 15%
• Modernizing Legacy Applications: 10%
• Lack of Data Center Space because of Equipment Spread: 9%
• How to Source IT Services: 5%
• How to Find and Retain Talent: 5%

Well, it’s taken almost a year to be “official”, but the National Bureau of Economic Research just announced that the US has been in a recession since December of 2007. It should come as a surprise to no one that dealing with smaller budgets is top of mind, even for the predominantly larger enterprises attending here.

2) What projects will receive the most funding in 2009?

• Virtualization/Consolidation: 31%
• Data Center Facilities – new builds: 17%
• IT Operations Process Improvement: 12%
• IT Modernization: 7%
• Green IT: 5%

Virtualization and (server) consolidation projects are clearly a priority for larger enterprises in 2009. What’s interesting here is the relatively very low priority of Green IT projects – in spite of the importance to attendees of getting power and cooling costs under control. Perhaps there’s a gap here between what’s often the hype of Green IT and practical considerations for data center managers when it comes to power and cooling management.

3) Where are you with server consolidation projects?

• No Plans: 3%
• Looking at it now and will start in next 2 years: 13%
• In process now: 58%
• Have already completed server consolidation project: 26%

Larger enterprises are consolidating servers with a quarter of attendees already having gone through the process at least once. And according to poll #2, this trend will definitely continue.

Due to the slow economy, most tech companies are being cautious and ratcheting back sales forecasts for software and hardware. The exception: Infra-Strategy, a company that operates a group of Web sites that help people find a lawyer and info to deal with bankruptcies, divorces and DUI cases. Visits to the sites are booming – with visits to totaldivorce.com, for example, up 112% in October 2008 (I found the picture on the website particularly compelling). Apparently, in bad times, divorce rates go up. Who knew?

Is it always a recession when it comes to IT Operations? Companies are constantly trying to find ways to do more with less in IT – reducing costs but keeping the same or even adding functionality – deploying technologies that drive IT consolidation such as mobile and remote access, unified communications and virtualization. Chris Silva of The Forrester Blog for IT Infrastructure & Operations Professionals is looking for a research panel to find out what fellow IT companies are doing to keep their IT budgets in check. To join the research panel visit: http://itpanel.forrester.com/.

The Cloud Computing Monopoly debate continues. O’Reilly Media founder Tim O’Reilly and technology writer Nicholas Carr (of “IT Doesn’t Matter” fame/infamy) have been discussing the ‘potential for a single company to achieve monopoly control of the world of cloud computing.’ But what’s even more interesting is the “who will make a lot of money” in cloud computing question.

Information Week’s new blog, Plug Into the Cloud, is already in the thick of the controversy on the emerging cloud computing trend. A recent post lists a bunch of highly opinionated comments on the topic by site visitors, running the gamut from “Cloud computing is kind of like the Emperor’s New Clothes” to “cloud software can actually be more expensive than the software I load onto my hard drive.”

Jeff Doyle writes an interesting post about resistance to IPv6 adoption (what, you think we forgot?). Instead of the usual focus on IPv6 as an application issue, he points out that it’s actually an infrastructure thing. Would you wait to upgrade routers, switches, software, or servers until you can find a way to make the newer systems profitable? Would you wait to increase bandwidth only after you have customers waiting to use it? If you’ve answered these questions “no”, then why are you waiting to upgrade to IPv6?

We posted about whether or not there were recession proof products in IT yesterday. Network World Management Maven Denise Dubie also writes about readers weighing in on IT and the economy – from having to do even more with less to seeing the economic downtown as an opportunity to highlight IT’s true value to the business.

And finally, on the lighter side: What would we do without crazy billionaires and their crazy purchases? According to a New York Times article, a company controlled by Google’s top execs just added a fighter jet to their roster. “Presumably no attacks on Microsoft are planned at this time.” (image from Wikipedia)

“Developed economics, especially in the United States and Western Europe, will be the worst affected, but emerging regions will not be immune,” said Peter Sondergaard, the global head of research at Gartner. “Europe will experience negative growth in 2009, the United States and Japan will be flat.”

Forrester is more optimistic (so far). Back in September, the analyst firm revised their prediction downward to an increase of 6.1% instead of the original 9.4%.

But both firms agree that the first IT purchases to feel the cut are in hardware – PCs, servers, storage devices, communications equipment, etc. Next up, software purchases and IT servers.

So are MSPs immune to the economic slow down? With expected layoffs and certainly hiring freezes across the board, turning to MSPs to pick up part of the load is starting to look better and better. At the recent MSP Alliance conference in Chicago, attending MSPs had a rosy view about growth in their industry, with sales cycles actually shortening from 6-12 months down to 2-6 months and 25% of them actually increasing prices in the past six months. It’s a good time to be a MSP.

If you look at the news, you’ll see layoffs, buyouts, bankruptcy, going-out-of-business– there are a lot of companies in trouble right now

Ebay — laying off around 1500 workers.

Corbis — Cutting 170 Jobs, as its start-up rival Photoshelter closes its doors.

Washington Mutual in trouble

HP cutting 24,600 jobs

B of A – stocks tumble as the bank buys Merrill Lync

Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac taken over by the Feds a couple weeks back

I’ve read in many places that even though the economy is headed under, tech is still going strong. But with fewer jobs overall and less confidence, tech is sure to take a tumble as well. These are tough times that aren’t going to be solved by going out and buying buttons for your favorite political candidate.

There is a great article in Business Week this week that talks about a scam that bank and credit card companies are pulling on consumers.  It has resulted in the banks winning arbitration cases against consumers to the tune of a 99.998% clip.  That is right, 99.998%.  It has turned arbitration, where an impartial judge makes determination into the biggest home field advantage this side of the NBA play offs.

It seems many of the credit card agreements that govern your use of credit cards call for arbitration to settle any disputes between you and the credit card company.  Well the credit card company gets to pick the arbitration company. Many pick the National Arbitration Forum, which markets itself to the credit card companies as a form of collection agency.  The whole system is basically stacked against the consumer, which results in the credit card companies getting their way.  Business Week does a great job of digging in here and finding out all of the dirty secrets of this scam.  I highly recommend you read the article for all of the details.

I don't think too many people disagree that over the last years there has been a big swing in the pendulum favoring business's over the consumer. Many of the laws and rules that were put in place to protect consumers over the years have either been thrown out or ignored.  Our bankruptcy laws have been totally rewritten to the disadvantage of the consumer.  Lazes-fare attitudes toward regulating business has seen oil companies raking in billions of dollars a quarter while we pay 4 dollars a gallon.  Health insurance companies raising rates higher than inflation while hospitals have to close for not making enough money.  A mortgage industry that without oversight has written loans that has our finance system to the brink of disaster. A return of inflation and recession at the same time.

Not too advertise my own political views, but do I think it is time for a change?  Your damn right I do!  I hope that the press shining the light on some of these injustices will make it easier for a new era in Washington to make right (no pun intended) some of the wrongs in our system.