Reducing Data Center Energy Costs a Top Priority According to I.T. Environments Poll

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Reducing Data Center Energy Costs a Top Priority According to I.T. Environments Poll

Infrastructure investment to continue over the coming years with High Performance Computing, AI and Edge data centers all on the shopping list, and 29% planning to relocate data centers in 2020.

7 April 2020 – London, UK – A new poll from Secure I.T. Environments Ltd, one of the UK’s leading design and build companies for modular and containerized data centers, has revealed that reducing energy costs (46%) and improving energy efficiency (39%) are key priorities for 2020 among IT professionals. The poll which was conducted across the two days of the recent Data Centre World event found nearly a third (29%) will be focusing on relocating their data center(s) over the remainder of 2020.

Asked about the top two challenges facing their IT infrastructure over the next two years, half (49%) cited upgrading their existing data centers as the biggest challenge. Second was the continued pressure organizations face around regulatory compliance (37%), either in terms of their specific industry, or areas of general compliance related to the IT department such as GDPR, ISO27001, IASME Governance or NIST to name but a few!

As we all know, bringing projects to life can be challenging, as revealed when respondents were asked about areas such as budgeting and skills. 34% reported that they see recruiting skilled professionals to work in their IT departments as a key challenge for the coming years. Budgets for projects can also be a problem: 37% reported getting the budget they require, but 27% said they need to fight for every pound, and 20% described themselves as ‘always underfunded’. Only 15% felt they got generous budgets that allowed them to do everything they require.

The pressures facing IT professionals responsible for data centers is also having an impact emotionally. Asked to comment on the emotions conjured up when they think about the current state of their IT infrastructure half (51%) reported negative emotions: Worry (27%), Anxiety (22%) and Despair (2%). The most reported emotion was Pride at 32%.

The poll showed that organizations are not only looking to upgrade their data centers but invest in new technologies to support their businesses across 2020 and 2021. Improving data center connectivity to benefit cloud services and high performance computing were joint top at 27%, followed by incorporating 5G technology and artificial intelligence at 24%. Edge data centers also featured heavily with a fifth (22%) planning to implement these to improve the performance and flexibility of their infrastructure.

Chris Wellfair, Projects Director at Secure I.T. Environments, commented, “The data center is becoming more important to organizations than ever before, as they look at new ways to grow and support staff. However, finding the skilled staff to deliver these transformative projects remains a challenge, even though organizations can secure the budgets needed to upgrade. Having the key personnel and external partners is critical to the long-term success of any data center project, so the time required to assemble that team needs to be factored into any transformation project. It’s set to be an exciting couple of years as data centers are accommodated across the UK with new technology to serve their businesses.”

The poll was conducted at Data Centre World 2020 on the 11th and 12th March 2020 with 123 respondents.