A recent article in the New York Times highlighted the difficulties of finding facility staff for data centers. The day after it came out, I spoke with Philip Meyers, executive director of infrastructure for Morgan Stanley, about the challenges of data center staffing. It's already a difficult matter for some organizations to find data center facility engineers and managers. Baby-boom generation retirements will only exacerbate the problem. After all, experienced data center facility executives can sometimes spot a problem just by walking into a data center. They hear a noise, feel a vibration, or notice an odor that shouldn't be there. "They use all their senses," said Meyers. For many facility executives, the question is, where will equally qualified replacements be found? But that's not the only way to look at the issue, Meyers says. Another approach would be to build more intelligence into data center facility infrastructure: infrared cameras built into automatic transfer switches, for example, and vibration monitors connected to a building automation system. Like an experienced facility engineer, the technology would aim to detect problems that should be addressed before the preventive maintenance schedule calls for work. Could intelligent infrastructure replace facility engineering experience? Meyers isn’t sure it’s possible. “You can’t replace good people with technology,” he says. But as qualified data center facility staff becomes harder to find, it’s an idea that could draw more attention.