Report: The Worldwide Data Center Install Base Saw Minimal Growth During the Fourth Quarter Of 2014
Emerging markets, cloud, and multi-tenant data center providers heat up an otherwise lukewarm data center market, according to a new data service from 451 Research.
Data from Voice of the Enterprise: Datacenters, 451 Research’s newest product offering, reveals that the worldwide data center install base grew at +0.2% Y/Y in Q4 2014 to 4.3 million data centers and IT sites. The weak demand for new facilities was primarily driven by a decline in traditional enterprise demand, particularly in mature markets. This decline was offset by the booming demand for large premium and hyperscale facilities from cloud, service provider, and multi-tenant data center vendors. While data centers from those organizations are typically very large, from a data center count perspective they are still the minority, representing only 5% of the market combined when server closets and rooms are excluded.
From a square footage perspective, enterprises continue to control the vast majority of the worldwide market, at 83%. MTDC and cloud providers control 12% and 5%, respectively. That balance will continue to shift over time as enterprises invest less in their own data center spaces and become more comfortable with relying on third parties. “Investment in new data center space by traditional enterprises is being propped up only by the sheer force of growing organic demand for IT resources. Almost all the overarching market trends are working against the need for enterprises to build out more of their own data center space,” said Daniel Harrington, research director, Enterprise Datacenters.