DATA CENTRE TRENDS: WHAT TO KNOW AND BE PREPARED FOR

The data center market continues to show a robust growth rate as both personal and corporate data booms.

A report by?Jones Lang LaSalle (JLL)?which states that the second quarter of 2023 recorded the largest data center demand in Europe with 114 MW of take-up across Europe’s leading markets of Frankfurt, London, Amsterdam, Paris and Dublin (FLAP-D). This is double the 51 MW of take-up seen in Q1.?The report also mentions that the growing demand for Artificial Intelligence (AI) is driving the need for increased data processing speed and efficiency with an eye on sustainability. (report extract JLL)

But as per study/report by CBRE Europe Data Centres Figures tracks the latest trends in Europe's colocation data centre markets. Across Frankfurt, London, Amsterdam, Paris, and Dublin (FLAPD), the vacancy rate declined to 10.6% in Q3, which is over a percentage point lower than the Q2 rate of 11.6%. (more detail at CBRE)

As discussed, much of this growth is being driven by new technologies that both require and enable greater efficiencies, bringing new cloud service providers and business models within reach of the industry and consumers.

Hence, organizations are increasingly contingent on data center services, from colocation to hyperscale, as they adapt to new challenges brought on by COVID, economic challenges and market growth trends.

Major data center trends briefly discussed here include:

• Expansion in hyperscale, colocation and multi-tenancy
• Workload repatriation
• Rising cost of outages
• Growth in demand for edge compute
• Supply chain difficulties causing limits in future capacity
• Implication over the sustainability of data centers
• To go waterless, wherever possible
• Expansion of automation
• Explosion of data

The Hyperscale Explosion:

The growth in hyperscale cloud computing isn’t likely to wane in coming years. At least, that is the signal from major hyperscale providers. Most organizations are still relying on on-premises data centers to reduce latency and improve resiliency while meeting compliance requirements. That said, organizations are not generally expanding their data center footprints — almost all growth is from data center providers, including data center colocation, hyperscale and multi-tenancy.

Workload Repatriation Is Still Common:

Organizations are still raveling as to what extent workloads should run in public-cloud versus private-cloud or on-premises infrastructure. The reasons for this varied. Cost inundate continue to play an important role especially as organizations establish to stabilize their operational expenses. Security concerns also play a role in moving workloads out of the public-cloud.

Data regulations and emerging technologies have complicated data centers, meaning repatriation and workload mobility where advancements are focused over the coming years will be continued.

Data Center Outages Are Upscale:

Data centers are more reliable than ever thanks to advancement in technology and processes. But that’s not to say that outages aren’t frequent: study finds out that 80% of data center operators experienced an outage over the past three years. Additionally, more outages costing more than $100,000 has significantly increased recently. (Uptime Institute)

Heading further, operators have to reduce human error by eliminating manual interventions and enforcing best practices for data center management.

You can read more of the newsletter article next week.

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