Press Release: Collaborative Study Quantifies UK Data Centre Size Space at 7.6 million sq m

Results from the Global Data Center Industry Census 2011, portrays the UK data centre market as a world leader in terms of its size, the value of investment being made and its attention to environmental and green considerations.

London, November 16^th 2011: As one of the largest global data centre markets, the UK is estimated to house up to 7.6 million square metres (81m sq.ft.) of dedicated data centre space - an area equivalent to 14 US Pentagons (one of the world’s largest buildings at 6m sq.ft) or 900 full size football pitches. Working on the basis of a UK average of 4.22kW/ rack, it suggests a “population” in excess of 2 million equipment racks.

George Rockett co-founder and CMO of DatacenterDynamics, said, “I’m not surprised by the status or size of the UK data centre market. When you look at the size of the operations of just a handful of organisations, you quickly get a sense of the market’s scale. From a research point of view, it has been important to establish a rigorous methodology as well as a representative sample of the industry in order to validate our numbers. We are delighted to have had the cooperation of CBRE, a company which has an unrivalled reputation in this sector.”

Andrew Jay, Head of Data Centres EMEA, CB Richard Ellis said, “Given the idiosyncrasies of privacy and security that prevail across the industry, it has been notoriously difficult to determine market size to date. By working with DatacenterDynamics over the last 6 months, and combining our data sets, we are exploring ways of modelling data centre markets to determine their total size. We believe the numbers released today well reflect the UKs position as a leading global data centre market, and look forward to refining the model and using it in other markets.”

In order to estimate the UK data centre market size, DatacenterDynamics Research used data from the Global Data Center Industry Census 2011, and built a predictive model to determine IT-based demand for data centres in a given location and the context in which they operate. Other input factors such as organisational size and IT dependence were also considered, and taken together with known and observed information about data centres and data centre portfolios.

The Data Center Industry Census 2011 depicts the UK’s substantial facility base as one of the largest global markets. It is set to benefit from 25% growth in investment to $3.35bn during 2011 – 2012. In the context of the research, this is money which will be invested in the construction of new data centres, the upgrade of existing facilities or the use of outsourcing. In absolute terms, the Census puts the UK ahead of other growth markets including China ($3.1bn), trailing only the world’s largest data center markets in the USA.

UK Power Use Growing; Its Energy and Carbon Monitoring Lead the World

In terms of power consumption, the UK data centre market is estimated to consume 6.4 GW (about enough energy to power 6 million homes) annually. This number is set to grow by 6.7% during 2011 – 12, or by a further 410 MW. This is well behind the 19% increase in power which the Census indicates as the global norm. In addition, perhaps driven by the prospect of further legislation or taxation on energy use and carbon emissions, the UK is amongst the greenest behaving of all the markets surveyed.

The process of enacting carbon legislation in the UK gave the data centre market a good lead time to get prepared for the Carbon Reduction Commitment. Today, the UK leads the world in terms of the number of facilities continuously monitoring carbon emissions, and has adopted the technology far more quickly than other markets facing similar legislation. The UK market is also a world leader in terms of the number of data centres which continuous monitor energy efficiency.

High Density Architecture in the UK – The Hallmark of a Highly Advanced Market

Unsurprisingly, there is a direct correlation between energy consumption and monitoring of both carbon emissions and energy efficiency; larger data centres tend to be more active than their smaller counterparts. The UK not only has a large number of large data centres, its data centres exhibit higher than average kW/ rack power density. This density will become more pronounced over time, as the rate of increase in power consumption (6.7%) is greater than the rate of growth in numbers of facilities and equipment racks (5%).

High density racks are the hallmark of the most developed data centre markets which also tend to be more advanced in terms of monitoring, IT architecture and efficiency strategies. High density not only provides ideal environments for virtualised servers, high productivity loads and Cloud infrastructure, it is also an indication that those designing and operating data centres are adept at minimising the power increases required to increase capacity.

From a staffing point of view, the UK data centre sector has a high proportion of individuals that are relatively well paid, have over 10 years experience in the workplace (51%) but are relatively low on academic qualifications when compared especially to higher growth but less developed data centre markets. However, the UK sits toward the bottom of the list when it comes to the belief that skills shortages could affect operations, although this could be a factor of higher levels of labour saving and automated technologies found in the market.

The Global Data Center Industry Census; UK Report is available for free download by visiting the DatacenterDynamics Research website. For further information, please call +44 (0) 207 377 1907.

The UK Data Centre Report can be downloaded free by visiting http://www.datacenterdynamics.com/research

About the 2011 Data Center Industry Census

The DatacenterDynamics Industry Census 2011 is the largest ever comparative study of data center operators and end-users as well as the facilities which they manage. A total of 5,400 interviews were completed during June and July 2011 to provide a detailed view of 22 key markets around the globe. The Data Center Industry Census provides a useful method of comparing market profiles, describes key trends and attitudes within those markets, and answers a myriad of questions about the nature of this rapidly growing sector. Research findings will be published in separate reports and available for free download at www.datacenterdynamics.com/research.

Editors Note

As a thank you to those respondents who gave their time to the DatacenterDynamics Industry Census 2011, DatacenterDynamics has made a donation of $13,925 to the UNICEF Children’s Emergency fund.

Press Contact:

Damien Wells

Spa Communications

dwells@spacomms.co.uk

+44 (0) 7900 302102