Sentrum v2 19/12/08 12:57 Page 36
Facilities
Accommodating Data
Requires New Partnerships
Against a backdrop of global financial turmoil, and the threatened onset of
recession, Sentrum commissioned an independent research report entitled
‘Accommodating the Data Centre.’ Andy Ruhan, CEO at Sentrum, reviews
the findings in order to gauge the current market reaction and shows how
businesses must plan here and now for future well being...
The questions we wanted answered For a while now, companies have been their organisation’s environmental
were ‘what are the requirements of recognising the need to cope with the policies.
businesses today when it comes to growing volume of data and the
allocating data centre space’, ‘are demands it places on IT systems and So if mega data centres have become
mega data centres still a reality’ and ‘is the space in which to store the a victim of the credit crunch, what
outsourcing the way forward’? infrastructure. Despite one popular choices does this leave businesses
Ultimately Sentrum was looking for a consideration in the past being which recognise that their growing
better understanding on the current development of in-house mega data data needs will bring severe space
business issues and requirements that centres, the research findings showed implications? What the market has
will shape both the short term and that 56% of businesses today have no now seen is a perception change from
long term futures of the data centre such intention of going down a route IT Managers when it comes to
market. The research collated that demands a long term considering outsourcing some, or even
responses from senior IT professionals commitment in terms of investment all, of their data centre demands.
across a wide variety of industry and construction. Of the remainder, at Whether through better
sectors, in organisations with 250 or best they considered that they ‘might’ communication by third party
more employees, and clearly outlined investigate that option, but none of the providers, improved technologies,
growing trends within the industry. IT managers questioned would then market forces or all of the above, the
In fact, almost half of the UK’s large go as far to say that they have definite
businesses hold at least some of their plans in place for such a project.
data centre space in external facilities.
Respondents cited the difficulty of
A small number of respondents, just forecasting the space requirements
5%, do look to third parties to manage accurately, with over a quarter
all their data centre space predicting that should their
requirements, but the median figure of organisation adopt a mega data centre
those outsourcing ‘some’ approach it would soon outgrow the
requirements to third party specialist space. Space is clearly at the forefront
operators is closer to half (50%). This of thinking when it comes to the data
is an important point to note, as centre and even when considering
maybe the majority of companies such large scale installations, very few
should now consider such an option recognised, or gave thought to the
for their own data centre requirements, provision of sufficient power, the
particularly in the wake of fluctuating difficulties in locating a site or whether
markets. such a facility would be in conflict with
36 | DATA CENTRE SOLUTIONS |
www.datacentresols.com Winter 2008
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