Widespread datacenter expansions planned by European companies: Study

A new study finds that more than 67% of European companies plan to extend their datacenters within the next 2 years.

Digital Realty Trust, a manager of corporate datacentres, conducted the research focused on the leading datacentre trends in the European market.

The study is based on a recent poll of senior decision makers who are either directly responsible for datacentres or influence significant decisions related to datacentre operations at large European companies.

Disaster recovery initiatives were cited as the leading reason for expansions, but the need for additional network connectivity, upgraded cooling, more raised floor area, additional power, and new applications were also cited as key drivers for expansion plans.

Respondents identified the following cities as their most preferred cities for the location of their datacentre expansions (in order of ranking): London, Paris, Dublin, Amsterdam, and New York

“One thing that is very clear from this European study and the earlier U.S. study is that datacentres are core to the operating infrastructure for companies today. Datacentres are no longer simply a closet full of servers that only the IT team worries about; datacentres are critical assets that the executive team and Board of Directors have as one of the key issues on their radar screen.

Michael Foust, chief executive of Digital Realty Trust

Nearly 60 % of companies have developed a green strategy for their datacentres that will impact their future datacentre decisions, said the research.

Michael Foust, chief executive of Digital Realty Trust, commented: “Similar to our survey of the U.S. market earlier this year, this study of European datacentre initiatives paints a robust picture of the datacentre market: broad-based demand for datacentre space from a wide variety of industries, with strong growth prospects based on the project timelines looking out two years and beyond. The findings revealed that demand was even stronger than our own estimates; it is remarkable to see that in both Europe and the U.S. more than 80 % of companies are planning datacentre expansions."

Foust added, "One thing that is very clear from this European study and the earlier U.S. study is that datacentres are core to the operating infrastructure for companies today. Datacentres are no longer simply a closet full of servers that only the IT team worries about; datacentres are critical assets that the executive team and Board of Directors have as one of the key issues on their radar screen."

When study participants were asked to rate the importance of several factors in selecting a geographic location for their datacentres, security was ranked as the most important criterion followed by accessibility for company personnel, telecom availability and power costs.

Chris Crosby, senior vice president of Digital Realty Trust commented: "One interesting difference between the results of the U.S. and European studies is the leading reason behind these expansions. In Europe, disaster recovery is far and away the primary reason that companies cited for their expansion plans, while in the United States the deployment of new applications was the lead reason."