There's a lot of technology available that can help you pack more equipment into a seemingly shrinking data center. But if an inadequate data center is impeding business growth, "that becomes a much greater cost than anything you can outlay on building a new data center," says Michelle Bailey, an analyst at market research firm IDC.

Once a decision is made to build, the IT manager must negotiate with vendors to get the best deal. And the old rules apply: The more you're buying, the more leverage you have. And new data centers mean a lot of new equipment. Here are some other tips for getting your money's worth from a new data center.

Minimize the Equipment

Denser equipment that takes maximum advantage of computing power can "in many cases dramatically reduce the footprint required to support the applications [a company maintains] today," says Lee Kirby, vice president and general manager of Lee Technologies Inc., a Fairfax, Va.-based data center development and management firm.

"A smaller footprint equates to less maintenance and cost of ownership," says Kirby. Yet, even with new construction, the battle to control cost and maximize the investment is never-ending. Sam Segran, CIO at Texas Tech University in Lubbock, is finishing a 1,000-square-foot data center expansion and is already worried that it won't be enough to meet the university's needs in six or seven years.

"We have two diametrically opposed things happening," says Segran. "On one side, we are getting crunched by cost issues of providing [cooling and power], and on the other, we're needing to double what we do for the researchers."

The university is looking at technologies that provide more computing power using less energy. One is IBM's new iDataPlex, which includes 84 servers built into a 42U rack (1U is equal to 1.75 in.). Due out this June, the iDataPlex is a dense system that cuts power use in several ways.

For example, using servers of less depth lessens the workload of cooling fans. Preliminary research by the university's IT department found that the system might be able to provide 30% more computing capacity using the same amount of power as a current system.