Will the perfect storm continue to drag on power and cooling markets?
The underlying growth drivers of data centers seem as strong as ever. Attend any industry event or presentation and you will likely see the same references to big data, the internet of things, mobile, cloud, and online video all combining to form a rising tide of data that must be processed, distributed, and stored. In theory this should lift all boats involved with data centers area. Unfortunately, on the infrastructure side, the uplifting wave of data is being overtaken by a perfect storm of negative factors.
As an example to illustrate this divergence, let us consider two markets that IHS covers. The first is the multi-tenant data center industry, where customers rent space in which to locate their IT gear as opposed to housing it in their own facilities. This market has been incredibly buoyant over the past several years in averaging double-digit revenue growth. During the first half of 2014, IHS calculates that multi-tenant data center sales grew by 12.7% on a global basis. Cleary a positive result from a market segment benefiting from many of the underlying growth drivers previously mentioned.