Long time ago data center events were where the industry people got together. The size of data centers were below 10MW. Now data centers can be 50MW and some companies are adding 100s of MW per year in data center capacity. The cloud has obsoleted IT closets and small business servers. While putting pressure on the mid market and even enterprises.

What happened to all the growth and interest in data centers? It has consolidated. Google and Amazon in 10 years have gone from occupying small colo spaces to be one of the biggest data center operators. Add some of the other Cloud and Web companies and they dominate the growth. Financials and Telcos used to drive the data center innovation and around their HQs. Now the data center footprints can be found in Oregon, Iowa, Oklahoma, North Carolina.

Long ago (8 years ago) when I started blogging on green data centers hardly any one discussed renewable energy. Now Apple, Google, and Facebook have made sustainability part of the data center message.

Given this consolidation and shift has the data center event gone through as big a shift? Many events have attempted to adjust their presentations. But, Apple, Amazon, Facebook, Google, and Microsoft don't go to data center conferences to discover new things. If they do go, they are usually presenting or found it convenient to attend.