1. Facility Profiles

Even based on smaller sample numbers, the United States sample is responsible for a larger quantity of racks than Western Europe. The facilities it owns or runs are slightly older than those in Western Europe and consuming more power, although, as in Western Europe, there has been a marginal decline in the average kW/rack since 2007. Unlike Western Europe, the United States samples have increased their averaged maximum kW/rack. Both regions are running their data centers slightly warmer than in 2007: 

2. Key Concerns

United States and Western European end users share the same concerns about power, cooling and operational costs. As in Western Europe the most major vendor concern is the lack of funds for investment – this again is lower down the owner-operator list of concerns. Unlike Europe, the United States has indicated a degree of concern about funding for investment since the research started at the beginning of 2007. This can be linked to the very high importance given in the United States to catering for IT growth and very high rates of projected investment requirements with the concern that, even in a buoyant economy, there may be insufficient funding to do everything required.

3. Investment Activity

While European data suggests a steady growth from 2006 through to 2009, growing at an even €200 million per annum, the United States growth has been more marked at around 15% from 2007 to 2008. Equally marked however is the variation between projected investment and actual investment (almost 10%) and this indicates the extent in both regions to which investment value is linked to a small number of large projects:

4. Technology Adoption

There are markedly different patterns of technology and solutions adoption/consideration between Western Europe and North America. One example of this is shown below. Both regions indicate similar levels of adoption of these cooling technologies. However, the United States’ level of consideration for all of them with the exception of free cooling is higher. This can be linked to the continuing growth of maximum power demand in the United States and the finding that while the current operating environment has led to a more selective consideration process in Western Europe this is not true (yet) of North America:

These (edited) excerpts have been taken from two recently published Datacenter Research Group reports - “Western Europe: Datacenter Investment & Infrastructure Trends 2007-2009” and “North America: Datacenter Investment & Infrastructure Trends 2007-2009”. The Western European information is based on responses from 792 owners and operators from five Tier 1 markets and the North American sample includes 588 end user responses across seven markets. The full reports including discussion of different markets, sectors and facility profiles within each region were first made available in February 2009.