Data centre expansions on the cards for 2013: survey

Increased security and disaster recovery have been cited as the top reasons for data centre expansion in 2013, according to a Campos Research & Analysis survey commissioned by Digital Realty.

The survey included interviews with 100 IT executives from Australia and found that 78 per cent plan to expand their data centres in 2013. Of these, 58 per cent said they plan to extend their facilities in more than one location.

This was a slight decrease from Digital Realty’s 2012 survey results which found that 76 per cent of respondents would expand their data centre infrastructure in 2012, while 48 per cent of those surveyed who were considering new data centre projects would expand in more than one location.

Among the participants with plans to expand in 2013, 44 per cent will use a partner for design and build or to lease wholesale space. Only 32 per cent plan to build the data centre expansion themselves.

In addition, 59 per cent of Australian respondents said they want their facility to be located locally. The most popular cities for a new data centre are Sydney, Melbourne and Singapore. According to the survey results, the most important factors in choosing a location were security and connectivity.

Managing power and cooling costs in the data centre

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The average reported power usage effectiveness (PUE) was 2.25. However, 13 per cent of the Australian respondents did not know their PUE and 5 per cent were unfamiliar with the measurement system.

Turning to the combined results from Singapore, Australia, Hong Kong and Japan, IT executives cited that they wanted less raised floor space of 1,235 square metres on average compared to 1,375 square metres in the 2012 survey.

Power needs remained constant with an average requirement of 5.0 kilowatts per rack, compared to 5.1 kW per rack last year.

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