About half of large companies around the world that participated in a recent survey said they would need a new data center within the next two years. Some already have one.

This is while only 15% of those surveyed have more than 70% of their environments virtualized, according to a report that attempts to assess how advanced the world's business leaders are in using data center technology to their advantage.

The report ÔÇô published by Oracle ÔÇô is based on a phone survey conducted by the IT market research firm Quocirca. The firm's research is sponsored by IT vendors, service providers and channel organizations, but it says its content is generated independently of vendor influence.

About 1,000 companies, with annual revenues ranking from US$100m to over $1bn, participated in the survey. The report is called "Oracle Next Generation Data Center Index".

Dermot O'Kelly, senior VP for Oracle hardware sales in EMEA, said in a statement that while there were clear leaders among the companies surveyed, the market overall was still failing to return business value from IT investments.

"The fast paced evolution of technology, coupled with the IT demands of individual departments has left many organizations burdened with complex, inefficient infrastructures, which are hindering the performance of the data center," he said. "A greater understanding is needed across the board of the steps needed to drive efficiency and performance."

On the scale of 0-10, data center operators worldwide scored an average of 5.28.

Germany and Switzerland, lumped into one region by the report's authors, led the pack with a score slightly over 6 points. The Nordics were not far behind, finishing with slightly less than 6 points. The US followed Nordics with about 5.80.

France, Iberia, Italy and the Middle East all fell below average.

The researchers rated data center performance in three categories: supportability, sustainability, flexibility. Interestingly, only on rare occasion did one country's or region's performance in one of the subgroups deviated much from its overall performance: