EDITOR’S QUESTION
in online services such as social
media, a tripling in the number
of connected devices, strong
consumer demand for smart
wearable devices – as well
as the inevitable pressure
placed on infrastructure
by AI processing.
Data centres
still face
significant
challenges
Further strong
growth is predicted
across all these areas, so
it’s reasonable to expect
demand for European data
centre capacity to remain
strong. However, the sector faces
a number of challenges in terms
of structural delivery, available real
estate and energy usage if it is to keep
on matching demand levels.
STU REDSHAW,
FOUNDER AND
CTO, EKKOSENSE
019 proved an
impressive year for the
European data centre
market, with record
levels of development
in the major data centre
metro hubs such as Frankfurt, London,
Amsterdam and Paris. Data centre real
estate services firm, CBRE, estimates that
European data centre capacity grew by
23% during 2019.
2
Key growth factors include the major
cloud hyperscale service providers
increasing their footprint in European
markets, continued enterprise demand
for co-location environments, as well
as the rise of Edge Computing facilities.
Together these drivers have combined
to place an unprecedented demand on
European data centres. Again, this should
hardly be surprising given the dramatic
increase in data volumes due to growth
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Issue 14
While demand for colocation space
bought by IT departments remains strong,
many expect usage to evolve in time
towards the hyperscale cloud centres.
Additionally, the widescale deployment
of 5G networks and the take-up of IoT-
enabled devices will see an increased
requirement to process transactions and
potentially store data at Edge Computing
facilities nearer to the source of the data.
I BELIEVE IT’S
NOW INCUMBENT
ON EUROPEAN
ORGANISATIONS
TO REFOCUS
ON OPTIMISING
THEIR DATA
CENTRE
PERFORMANCE
FOR 2020 AND
BEYOND.
THE SECTOR
FACES A NUMBER
OF CHALLENGES
IN TERMS OF
STRUCTURAL
DELIVERY,
AVAILABLE REAL
ESTATE AND
ENERGY USAGE
IF IT IS TO KEEP
ON MATCHING
DEMAND LEVELS.
Meeting regulatory challenges
2019 also saw clear indications that
metro area governments are increasingly
concerned about the construction of new
data centres due to pressure on local
power infrastructure and land shortages.
In the Netherlands, the Amsterdam
municipality took the decision in 2019
to halt new data centre construction,
following an eight-year period where the
Dutch DC market grew at an average
annual rate of 18.5%. Many expect other
major European metro hubs to start
considering similar initiatives.
Limits on space and power mean that data
centres of all sizes need to do more with
less and that requires them not only to run
more efficiently, but also to manage their
capacity better. That’s why at EkkoSense
we’re providing data centre teams with
real-time access to their critical heartbeat
power, cooling and space data – allowing
them to run their data centres much leaner
by releasing rack capacity and securing
average cooling energy savings of 24%. I
believe it’s now incumbent on European
organisations to refocus on optimising
their data centre performance for 2020
and beyond. Fail to do this, however, and
that’s going to prove a problem for an
industry that’s coming under increased
scrutiny for its energy usage. ◊
www.intelligentdatacentres.com