Data centre capacity continues to rise. Digital Realty's 2014 survey of trends across Europe canvassed data centre decision makers in the UK, Germany, France, the Netherlands, and Ireland. When asked about future plans for data centre capacity planning, almost all respondents (92%) indicated they are planning some form of expansion within the next four years.
More than one-third (38%) of respondents expected their existing data centre budget to grow between 5-10% in the next 12 months, with an additional 7% of respondents expecting to increase their data centre budget by more than 10% in the next 12 months.
When making decisions about new data centre facility investments, the most important considerations for respondents were the data centre's network connectivity options (81%), including carrier availability and carrier density. The next most important considerations were the resiliency level and availability of the data centre facility (79%), the cost of energy at the data centre location (77%), and the level of control over the data centre facility (76%).
Storage growth, business growth, and the virtualisation of critical applications are seen to be the greatest drivers for data centre capacity growth for European companies participating in a commissioned survey conducted by Forrester Consulting on behalf of Digital Realty Trust, provider of data centre and colocation solutions.
The combined survey results for the five countries revealed that the top expected drivers of data centre capacity growth were storage growth (56%), business growth (48%), and virtualisation (42%). The next tier of drivers included big data (36%), business continuity (26%), and data centre consolidation (23%).
Key drivers by country were as follows:
- UK: Storage growth, business growth, virtualisation, and big data
- Germany: Storage growth, virtualisation, big data, and business growth
- France: Storage growth, business growth, virtualisation, and big data
- Netherlands: Business growth, storage growth/big data (tied), and virtualisation/redundancy (tied)
- Ireland: Business growth, compliance/consolidation (tied), and business continuity
Commenting on the survey findings, Bernard Geoghegan, Managing Director, EMEA, for Digital Realty said, "This information further enhances our understanding of current and prospective client requirements. In a notable shift from last year, the top three drivers of data centre capacity growth were storage growth, business growth, and virtualisation, versus security, disaster recovery, and the supply/reliability of power in the 2013 survey. This is consistent with the shifting view of the data centre from a cost centre to a revenue centre, and a critical component of underlying business growth."