The use of digital services, from streaming sites to calls with colleagues, has been the forefront in data centre growth across the world. Whilst data centre design and build will continue to evolve as designs are improved and refined have over the years, there is a fresh impetus to data centre use and development with organisations using ever greater amounts of cloud applications and data centre based services since the beginning of the pandemic. As a result our data centre predictions evolve around growth, development and adaptation to new work structures and future thinking.
Data centres continue to develop and evolve
During the last 18 months, organisations have been moving to innovative solutions and adopting more hybrid IT environments to maintain business operations whilst their workforce may still work remotely. By changing the focus on how IT is delivered throughout their businesses, data centre operators will modify their services to support these changes. As a knock-on effect, data centre designs will adapt to meet the changing requirements and usage patterns of their clients.
In a study by Gartner, they predict by 2025 85% of infrastructure strategies will integrate on-premises, colocation, cloud and edge delivery options, compared with 20% in 2020. As we see a more flexible approach to working remotely and in the office, 2022 will be the year that companies will really evaluate their IT infrastructure models and evolve to support modified methods of working .
Edge infrastructure will grow more with demand
Following from Gartner’s 2025 predictions on infrastructure strategies, we will see a continued growth in Edge delivery options. These smaller data centres operated remotely but located near the populations they serve will offer several advantages to their users such as low latency, scalability, and data security.
Whilst this deployment strategy provides clear benefits, Edge will also result in operational and sustainability issues to be resolved as a result of the increased number of sites, remote operation and smaller scale buildings, all of which need to be considered properly.
Sustainability will be an increasingly hot topic
Sustainability issues are a high priority feature on many companies agendas. According to some figures data centres may be responsible for up to 3% of global power consumption. The requirement for large amounts of power and potentially water is resulting in far greater negative comment in the media and greater attention from governments and potential regulators. New innovative data centre design and build solutions to create more environmentally sustainable and energy efficient data centres sit at the core of improving environmental impact. Data centre design consultants such as Future-tech are rising to the challenge of creating more sustainable designs using more energy-efficient systems, reducing greenhouse gas output and increasing renewable energy usage alongside proposing practices and improving operational management in order to reduce resource consumption.
Transparency is key as organisations look increasingly at sustainability criteria in making their choice of data centre supplier and location or data centre design services that will support their vision and intended solution. Site selection will continue to be important, with some data centre operators seeing increased to their facilities due to climate change. Having a site survey and selection process in place supported by a team of experienced and dedicated data centre engineers, such as those and Future-tech will minimise any risk in the decision process.
Increased demand for data centres
Research undertaken by JLL in 2021 found there was a strong demand for data centres in Europe, with London remaining as the top location in demand. This was largely driven by cloud companies, and the rise in data usage and remote connectivity throughout the pandemic. This growth is set to continue to increase over the next 5 years as companies turn to cloud based or hybrid solutions. In a recent report, the global data centres market is estimated to reach $143.4 Billion by 2027.
These increases not only spark questions surrounding data centre sustainability (as mentioned in an earlier prediction), but also a growing community interest over the impact of this infrastructure on their doorstep. Whilst conflict might come from those in the immediate vicinity to the centre, sometimes the lure of local investment and other proposed benefits can win over opposition.
This has resulted in demand for new sites in Tier 2 and Tier 3 locations with previously undeveloped areas near population centres now being considered as suitable for data centre sites. Developers building on land previously holding large industrial facilities with significant power supplies get less resistance to new builds. Repurposing industrial space with sustainable data centre designs benefits local communities, has less environmental impact and supports the increase in data centre demand.
How Future-tech can help
As a leading global data centre innovator, Future-tech will work in partnership with you to understand your needs and requirements to ensure the final result meets all expectations for your data centre project.
Our experience as a data centre engineering-based consultancy service will build the solid foundations needed to deliver resilient, efficient, and more cost-effective data centres through pioneering design and build.
Data Centre predictions for 2022
