Singapore continues to drive the demand for data centers

A majority or 78 percent of Singapore’s IT decision makers who participated in a recent survey plan to definitely or probably expand their data centers in 2013, with 82 percent planning for 2014. More than two thirds of the respondents who plan to expand this year prefer to locate their new data centers in Singapore as compared to other countries in the region. The research, conducted by Campos Analysis & Research on behalf of Digital Realty Trust, Inc., indicates that 83 percent will use a partner for design and build or to lease wholesale space, or both.

Of the Singapore-based respondents in the survey, 11 percent cited owning six or more data centers. Approximately 67 percent said they had built a new data centre in the past 24 months. Of those with plans to expand in 2013, 61 percent say they plan to expand in more than one location.

Commenting on the survey results, Kris Kumar, Senior Vice President and Regional Head of Asia Pacific for Digital Realty, said, “It is clear that Singapore’s data centre users are driving their expansion initiatives forward to manage the exponential growth in IT applications and data storage. With the high costs of individual new construction and the limited number of appropriate new sites, IT decision makers see the value of working with a data centre provider such as Digital Realty to fulfill these requirements.”

The average desired space and power requirements for data centre expansion initiatives are 14,000 square feet and 5.4kW per rack respectively. The research also indicates that the respondents’ need to track and manage data center power usage effectiveness (PUE) has increased over the last year. Most companies (80 percent) likely to expand in 2013 are extremely or very confident that they can comply with future energy (86 percent) or carbon emission regulations (82 percent).

“The continued focus on energy efficiency will drive change in the type of requirements customers have for their data centers,” explained Kumar. “This will highlight the capabilities of solution providers, such as Digital Realty, that can deliver data centre designs that are not only resilient, but also extremely efficient.”


Adopted from Networks Asia (www.networksasia.net)