Research and Markets: An Article in Property Week, October 2007 Estimated That the Data Centre Market in the UK Is 4.5 Million Square Feet under Capacity

Business Wire, Dec 18, 2008

DUBLIN, Ireland -- Research and Markets (http://www.researchandmarkets.com/research/7bbe04/what_is_the_future) has announced the addition of the "What is the Future of Data Centres" report to their offering.

At the end of the 90's and in the early years of this decade, a huge amount of data centre capacity was built on a flush of cheap money to address the promise of the dotcom boom. Internet applications were going to transform our lives, and hosted applications were going to drive it.

The only thing that was wrong, for data centres was the timing.

The dotcom boom was delayed by the availability of ubiquitous cheap Broadband and many data centres stood empty. As E-Commerce and social networking have picked up on the dotcom promise, that capacity is now looking very out of date, and is struggling with current generation computing density, power and cooling characteristics. Having all of your computers and data centres in Docklands also looks a bit like having all of your eggs in one basket.

Demand has been outstripping supply for some years now, and this has driven prices up in data centres. The tightening of the financial market makes the funding of additional capacity more difficult, but the current economic slowdown compensates for this by driving a search for efficiencies and savings and improving the outlook for outsourced services of data centres.

The aim of this report is to give the reader an informative overview of present and future data centre sectors.

Targeted towards corporate data centre operators, systems integrators, outsourcing companies and independent data centre operators, the scope of the report covers current challenges and explores some of the commercial and technical opportunities faced by data centre users. It also covers the marketing, technical and economic aspects of the sectors.

According to the Data Centre Institute (AFCOM Membership Survey 2006) 95% of data centre users predict the need to expand or outsource their data centre operations over the next 10 years, and 77% envisage an upgrade or relocation.

An article in Property Week, October 2007 estimated that the data centre market in the UK is 4.5 million square feet under capacity; part of the problem being poor availability of power in popular locations, as discussed throughout this report.

The report explores a number of key challenges facing the sector:

Many data centres are based in mixed use buildings, compromising security, power and cost transparency. Building a data centre from scratch to a high standard is expensive and carries significant ongoing overheads. Many users are considering outsourcing data centre operations, although this can give rise to issues around security and service levels.

The economic environment leads to increased cost consciousness and supports the move to outsourcing.

New assessment of business continuity risks and increased dependence on E-Commerce and other outward facing systems causes users to consider location and diversity.

As computing density increases, problems of power and cooling drives users to assess their options. Between 1996 and 2006, the number of servers in use rose from six million to 28 million, and the average power consumption of each server grew from 150 watts to 400 watts.

Power is running out in popular data centre locations such as London Docklands, the Thames Valley and Manchester.

Surplus power is available in old heavy industry areas such as South Wales, South Yorkshire and central Scotland. Falling transit bandwidth prices reduce the dependency on traditional locations. The City of London has a power demand of 1,000MW which is expected to rise by 80% over the next 5 to 7 years, whilst the Docklands has a power demand of 250MW, which is expected to rise by 90% over the same period.

New licensing models, such as Software as a Service (SAAS), create an opportunity for outsourcing and hosting.

New ecology concerns and forthcoming legislation drive a re-assessment of current usage.

Virtualisation and consolidation technologies create opportunities to re-architect core systems and reduce ongoing support costs.

For more information visit http://www.researchandmarkets.com/research/7bbe04/what_is_the_future.