| CommScope Global Data Centre Survey shows investments during downturn |
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September 10, 2009 Data centres are increasingly viewed as critical business priorities and, despite the current economic climate, receiving ongoing investments to improve performance and reliability. According to the new Global Data Centre Survey commissioned by CommScope (with contributing sponsors Brocade, Eaton and Intel), almost a third (32%) of all organizations surveyed worldwide are planning or building new data centres, while more than four out of five (83%) existing data centres continue to receive investment for infrastructure and technology projects. In the backdrop of the current economic environment, almost two-thirds (65%) of respondents were required to demonstrate a specific return on the investment before their data centre projects were approved. More than 730 IT professionals from 54 countries with responsibility for their organizations’ data centres responded to the Global Data Centre Survey questions on trends in data centre equipment, design and future development. “It is clear that data centres are viewed as mission-critical, and organizations continue to invest accordingly to ensure quality, performance and intelligence are successfully supporting business goals,” said George Brooks, director, Enterprise Data Centres, CommScope. “Whether it is to stay ahead of technology developments and new applications or to address cost-efficiency opportunities, data centre expansions and improvement projects are continuing around the world, despite the economic downturn.” Other key findings from the Global Data Centre Survey: • Globally, 54% of the organizations installing new copper cabling would invest in Cat 6A 10Gb/s solutions. Airports (86%) and healthcare (71%) are the business sectors leading the drive toward investment in Cat 6A 10G copper solutions. • Of those installing new fiber cabling in their data centre, the shift to 10G and 40/100G laser-optimized multimode fibers is accelerating, with data centres installing OM3 at a rate of 31% and OM4 at a rate of 19%. • Data centres continue to receive investment for power- and space-saving technologies. They include blade servers that are more compact and energy-efficient than previous types, and virtualization that allows more applications to run on each server. • As additional computing resources are packed into equipment racks, data centres are moving to higher bandwidth solutions to reduce growth in cabling volume. Blade servers, again, can decrease cable management complexity as compared to rack-optimized servers. 30% are already using new 10Gb/s copper connectivity solutions in the network backbone and a further 46% plan to do so in the next three years. • In horizontal network segments, 21% are using 10Gb/s over copper. Another 48% plan to upgrade in the next three years. The survey shows that the importance of performance and quality in data centre infrastructure is widely appreciated. More respondents named performance (62%) and ease-of-maintenance (54%) as influences on their purchasing decisions than said they were influenced by price (50%). “Improved data centre performance is an efficiency driver that can help organizations fight the effects of the recession and be ready for the upturn,” said Brooks. “Physical layer infrastructure is a focus of attention since it can quickly become a bottleneck at times of peak demand. Reliable, affordable 10G and 40/100G solutions will be important to the ongoing operational and space saving efficiencies of data centres for years to come. These high-speed infrastructure connections free space for other equipment and for the flow of cooling air, which was an issue of concern for more respondents (61%) than any other.” CLICK HERE for CommScope. |
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