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| Data Centres Braced for Credit Crunch Data centres in the UK have been taking active steps towards making their business efficient, so that the credit crisis doesn't automatically mean that the sector will go into freefall. As many organisations suffer in the present turbulent economic climate, the UK data centre market continues to grow, with more activity in the last 12 months than over the past three years. Indeed, for the first time since the industry downturn of 2002, London's data centres are now reaching capacity. With the focus for data centres in 2008 very much on reducing carbon footprints, 2009 is seeing similar interest in reducing energy consumption, but for different reasons. Indeed, cost efficiency in all aspects of the business is the number one priority. The early inroads into reducing costs last year mean that data centres are ahead of the game in creating efficient businesses, helping them to weather the economic storm. Data Centre World, the only data centre expo and conference in the UK, found that at last year's show, the focus of conference presentations was making data centres more green, whereas this year presentations are focused on money-saving hints and tips. A recent survey by Hewlett Packard found that despite a tightening of IT budgets brought on by the credit crunch, 60% of companies still plan to invest in data centre improvement in the coming year, with UK companies averaging 3.4 data centre projects a year (a figure expected to rise to 4.2 in three years). As data centre customers make cuts in other parts of their budgets, money earmarked for the data centre is not taking a hit, which is indicative of the fact that corporations recognise how critical data centres are to their businesses. The survey also found that the most common data centre focus is on short-term programmes of data centre rationalisation and consolidation to cut day to day costs, for example, increased use of video conferencing to reduce travel costs, and reduced spending on training and new hardware. Sarah Williams, event director, Turret Group comments: "Although many data centres are coping well with the credit crunch so far, there are many new ways to improve efficiency, and speakers at the Data Centre World will be giving real-life examples of how they have readied their centres for tough times, providing the ideal opportunity to learn new techniques." Data Centre World 2009 will take place on 24-25th February 2009 at Barbican Exhibition Hall 1. write your comments about the article :: © 2009 Computing News :: home page |