According to a new report from IDC, European organisations are considering pre-integrated, industrialised applications and automation to cut down operating costs of data centres.
IDC Enterprise Server Group research manager, Giorgio Nebuloni, said that the push toward faster time to market is becoming apparent, with datacentres under pressure to deliver internal and external services more quickly, while avoiding large speculative capital investment.
"The Web era brings with it new levels of expectation; technology is becoming easier to consume on tap," Nebuloni said.
"This is leading to a review of purchasing processes and a greater openness towards prebuilt solutions, both on the facility as well as on the back-end system side of the datacenter. "Needless to say, automation is a key ingredient for success at all levels."
According to the report, the rise in issues related to energy constraints, higher electricity prices and suppliers have been developing applications including containers or modular ‘foldable’ steel datacentres, and adoption is on rise in scale-out organisations as well as in the midmarket.
IDC System Infrastructure Solutions Consulting associate VP, Chris Ingle, said that with the number of computing cores shipped into Europe growing at double digits despite low server shipment growth, power and cooling density has been growing dramatically.
"Combine that with constrained budgets for capital expenses in the midmarket and financial sector and it becomes clear that modular facilities, or, in cases where high cooling density or small environments are required, containerized solutions become increasingly attractive," Ingle said.
"A recent IDC survey showed that around 15% of European enterprises are using or plan to use modular or containerized facilities.
"While they currently account for only a small portion of the datacenter facility spending in Europe, this will remain a key segment, with growth in the 30%-40% range over the next few years, led by deployments in Northern Europe and emerging markets."
