Potentially worrying research from HP has found that as
even as the importance of datacentres to European business is
increasing, many are critically close to exceeding their limits and
that businesses’ senior management are failing to understand just
how essential datacentres are.
The survey of 1,020 CIOs and business unit heads across Europe,
who are under pressure to reduce costs whilst transforming
technology environments into assets to drive business growth,
revealed
just how critical to the business datacentres have become. Both
CIOs and business unit heads rated the datacentre as 8.4 on a scale
of 1 – 10 in terms of importance.
Yet across Europe
datacentres are approaching the limits of their energy, cooling and
space resources while facing needs to comply with environmental
legislation that aims to reduce carbon emission. The survey found
that the majority of datacentres in Europe have reached 82% of
their full capacity.
Added to which nearly three quarters (74%) of CIOs in the UK
feel that business unit heads fail to understand datacentre issues.
The problem most commonly encountered is that the business heads
see these challenges as purely IT issues rather than business
issues.
The results further reveal that a vast majority of chief
information officers (CIOs) are addressing this issue in the short
term through data centre rationalisation and consolidation
programmes.
The biggest
challenge currently facing companies in the UK with respect to
managing their datacentres, is balancing the need to secure the
investment required to improve facilities with the need to reduce
capital expenditure, cited by just over half (53%) of companies in
the UK.
The main challenges that UK companies said they face are
achieving greater technology infrastructure flexibility and agility
to support business growth (42%) and reducing capital expenditure
on the datacentre (37%).
On average, according to the research, companies in the UK
currently have 5.7 datacentres, with this figure expected to rise
to 6.1 by 2011. Despite the economic downturn, 60% of companies
indicated a willingness to invest in improving their facilities.
Moreover, technology departments expect to see a 46% increase in
the number of datacentre transformation projects planned over the
next three years. In the UK companies are currently averaging 3.4
projects per year, with this figure expected to rise to 4.2 by
2011.
Commenting on the survey, Reinier van Hoeijen, director, Data
Centre Transformation Services, HP EMEA expressed confidence that
managed correctly, datacentre transformation could be very
beneficial for firms. “[Transformation can] reduce costs whilst
enabling increased flexibility and efficiency and creating better
alignment between technology and the business. It also has the
potential to transform the entire business, adding competitive
edge,” he said.
However, he did caution CIOs that they needed to change working
practices. “CIOs and business unit heads need to work together to
ensure that the technology infrastructure strategy is aligned with
specific desired business benefits. In order to alleviate their
current pressures and ultimately reduce costs, businesses should
define return on investment and the impact that transformation will
have on their people, processes and infrastructure,” he added.