The data centre industry has exploded with vigorous growth; according to industry analyst IDC, the total number of data centres around the world will peak at 8.6 million in 2017. While “Data Center Outlook 2016” reports that this year data centre stocks surged 19% in Q1, and averaged 50% in Q2 and shows that globally, North America remains the most competitive market, representing 44% of the total market share.
Driving this growth is the explosion of data. According to IDC, the digital universe is doubling in size every two years. It means data centre providers need to be able to hander the sheer volume, accessibility and requirements for its storage and transport, but this is placing huge pressure on the infrastructure and resources, as well as decisions concerning location.
According to the “Data Centre Risk Index 2016”, when it comes to choosing a suitable location for a data centre, traditional drivers, such as cost and connectivity, are quickly being replaced by protection from natural disasters; a location’s coping capability ranked as the most important risk factors while political stability ranked second, collectively accounting for one third of overall decision making.
When ranked in order, the best place to locate your data centre was Iceland with an index score of 100%, followed by Norway (96.21%) and Switzerland (90.26%). In ninth place is the UK with a score of 79.81%, followed by North America (78.73%). These countries were deemed to offer politically stable environments for doing business, with low-risk of natural disasters and strong fundamentals in terms of energy security and share of renewable resources.
It’s clear that the data centre landscape is changing fast as leading providers and users strive to stay competitive amidst rapid regulatory, technological and environmental change. But what factors are driving the market?