Data center managers are facing a space crunch. As businesses grow, so does their IT infrastructure, and data center managers need to squeeze in all those extra servers, power distribution units (PDUs), and yes, UPSs. So the best kind of backup power will be compact and powerful, either through a small form factor or the ability to scale power capacity within the same footprint.

Traditionally, companies have bought more infrastructure than they need. The practice is highly inefficient, though, so more people are turning to smaller, modular equipment. Further, people are less certain about their future infrastructure needs and are thus building out data centers incrementally.

Products like Eaton Corp.'s BladeUPS, American Power Conversion Corp.'s InRow cooling units and Emerson's Liebert NX with Softscale allow users to build out an infrastructure in a modular fashion rather than buying large units for potential capacity and operating products inefficiently during the life of the equipment. So look for data center managers to purchase more modular equipment in 2008.