Third-party data centre operators receiving the bulk of data centre budgets

Uptime Institute gathers responses via email (spring 2013) from 1,000 data centre facilities operators, IT managers and senior executives from around the globe.

As in previous surveys, the sample is heavily represented by large data centre operators in North America with a growing number of respondents from Europe, Asia and Latin America.

“One of the most significant points in the survey, data centre budgets are growing overall, but the vast majority of growth is occurring in the third party providers, reflecting a shift in spending away from enterprise-owned data centres and toward outsourced options,” said Matt Stansberry, Uptime Institute Director of Content and Publications. “This isn’t the end of the enterprise-owned data centre, but it should serve as a wakeup call. Going forward, enterprise data centre managers will need to be able to collect cost and performance data, and articulate their value to the business in order to compete with third party offerings.”

Key findings of the survey include:
• Data centre budgets: 77% of third-party data centre providers receiving large (10% or more) year-over-year budget increases this year, versus just 47% of enterprise data centres.
• Self-reported PUE improved from 1.89 in 2012 to 1.65.
•The percentage of companies pursuing green data centre certifications like US Green Building Council’s LEED program or Energy Star grew from 48% in 2012 to 58% in 2013.
• Enterprise public cloud adoption rose from 10% in 2012 to 17% in 2013.
• Reported DCIM software adoption is 38% among respondents, with the major driver being capacity planning.
• Prefab modular data centre growth has stalled out, and adoption is still in the single digits.
Uptime Institute’s complete survey report drills down on many of the data points, carving out segments by company size, geography and vertical industry.