Just 29% of data centre decision-makers say their current facilities are meeting their needs, and just 6% say their data centres are updated ahead of their needs.
These are among the findings included in a new report from Forbes Insights and Vertiv. “The Modern Data Centre: How IT is Adapting to New Technologies and Hyperconnectivity,” examines the results of a survey of 150 data centre executives and engineers from various industries around the world.
The survey results indicate a troubling lack of planning and preparation for today’s evolving data ecosystem. A closer examination of the results reveals a stark contrast between executives and engineers: 11% of executives say their data centers are updated ahead of current needs while just 1% of engineers say the same.
“As today’s data centre evolves to incorporate enterprise, cloud and edge resources, thorough planning and foresight is needed to meet organisational computing requirements and business objectives,” says Martin Olsen, vice-president of global edge eystems for Vertiv.
“It is clear, however, that many organisations are lagging on that front. With that in mind, we anticipate considerable investment and activity among businesses trying to catch up and get ahead of the changes.”
Other notable results from the survey include:
* 92% of CIOs and chief technology officers say their business will require faster download and response times in the near future.
* 63% say they have difficulty meeting bandwidth needs at all times.
* Security (45%) and bandwidth (43%) are the two areas most in need of upgrades.
* Security (43%), backup and emergency preparedness (33%), the ability to implement new technologies (28%) and bandwidth (27%) were the most commonly identified features that will give businesses a competitive advantage.
* Respondents are bullish on self-configuring and self-healing data centres. 24% said more than half of their data centres will be self-configuring by 2025, and 32% said more than half would be self-healing.
Pierre Havenga, MD of Vertiv MEA, says: “Across the Middle East we are experiencing a drastic increase in demand from customers driven by wholesale requirements as well as uptake to improve efficiency in their existing data centres.
On the other hand, in Africa there are two types of data centre needs we experience from customers: the first is legacy data centres with limited white space for expansion – these customers require Vertiv’s expertise to increase the power density of their racks and drastically improve their efficiencies.
“The second is green field sites where the trend we’ve seen is towards prefabricated modular solutions seeing as customers prefer the flexibility to scale up operations in line with the exponential demand growth while taking advantage of this solutions ability to optimise their technical skills, infrastructure and funding constraints.”