IT will play an even larger part in data centers as companies plan to carry out more consolidation and create much denser environments in response to rising demand for data center space, according to the latest survey results released by the Uptime Institute.

The Institute released its second Data Center Industry Survey, which focussed on results from 1,100 owners and operators from around the world, with the largest amount of responses coming from the US.

It said of these companies – 75% of which operate more than one data center –55% said data center budgets were up compared with 2011 budgets. Last year 52% said they had seen budgets increase year-on-year.

Of these companies, 32% had seen more than a 10% increase in 2012.

“The Uptime Institute survey indicates that compute demands, and the associated rising data center costs and investments, will not be put on hold by economic downturns or market volatility,” the Uptime Institute said.

The largest amount of data center growth was seen in Asia, where 55% of companies reported a budget increase of more than 10%.

And while 80% of respondents said they had seen their data center operations grow - either through upgrades or the building of a new facility - 30% of respondents said they still expect to run out of data center capacity in 2012.

Most of the respondents will try to meet this challenge by consolidating servers and upgrading facilities. Results show that 10% fewer respondents plan to build new data centers than in 2011.

“Going forward, we anticipate that organizations will continue to utilize IT, rather than purely Facilities measures, to provide the efficiency and lifecycle extension of data centers as critical corporate infrastructure,” the Uptime Institute said.

Moving to the Cloud

Many operators will also move their workloads to the Cloud – 10% more than last year – to overcome space constraints.

In 2012, 25% of respondents (compared to 16% in 2011) said they planned to move workloads to the public cloud, while 49% (compared with 35% in 2011) planned to deploy a private cloud in 2012.

Asia was seen to be the most advanced in public cloud adoption, while the European and North American markets are more advanced with their private cloud, with most demand for public and private coming from larger organizations.

Modular and energy efficiency trends

The survey also covered the adoption of modular technologies, which doubled in deployment from 4% in 2011 to 8% in 2012 (figures based on plans to deploy modular, not actual deployments).

Europe and Asia showed the most interest in pursuing modular deployments, with larger organizations once again leading the pack.

Of respondents looking to deploy modular, 21% are considering using containers with IT, power and cooling bundled into one.

And in regards to energy efficiency, 82% of respondents said they realized how integral energy savings can be to the bottom line, but only 20% of organizations were responsible for the end power bill.

“This speaks to how the responsible parties are held accountable for defining and implementing a more energy-efficient solution,” the Uptime Institute said.

DatacenterDynamics Industry Census 2012

The Uptime Institute findings are in line with the findings of the DatacenterDynamics Industry Census for 2012, which is currently calling for input.

Based on entries so far, the economic crisis has failed to impact data center growth worldwide.

“Whilst countries with highly developed data center markets will almost certainly see lower growth figures than previously enjoyed, all indicators (including initial responses to the 2012 Industry Census) point to continued growth across the sector,” DatacenterDynamics Intelligence managing director Nicola Hayes said.

“This is particularly so in under-developed countries, as investors, technology companies and governments in those areas continue in their efforts to ensure they stand a chance of competing in an IT-enabled world.”

Forecasts generated from the results of the DatacenterDynamics Industry Census 2011 predicted a worldwide data center growth rate of 7% from 2011 to 2012 with some less mature markets showing growth rates of up to 60%.

To take part in the Census, click here. DatacenterDynamics will donate US$5 to UNICEF for each completed questionnaire.