Data centre managers ramping up tech investment

Gordon Peters
Thursday, 26 August 2010 00:52

IT Industry - Market

Australian data centre managers will continue their investment in data centre infrastructure in the year ahead according to a new survey that found that 60 percent of the managers actually plan to increase their level of technology investment over the next 12 months as a way of reducing operational costs.

Conducted by global manufacturer in IT cooling solutions and services group, STULZ Australia, at this month's Data Centre Strategics and Green Technology conference staged in Sydney, the survey found that more than a quarter - 27 per cent - of the respondents will channel these funds towards projects which drive down the cost of running their data centre operations.

However, according to STULZ, driving down operating costs is not the only reason for data centre investment in Australia. The company says just under a quarter of respondents need to replace aging technology and 20 per cent of data centre managers are investing in power and cooling management in order to meet their company's sustainability objectives. 

'Indeed, 32 per cent of respondents plan to invest in precision air conditioning and high density cooling solutions,' STULZ Australia managing director, John Jakovcevic, said, adding that 'Ten per cent of respondents are also fitting out new data centre buildings with the latest IT infrastructure.' 

According to Jakovcevic, 'when selecting a vendor solution, 28 per cent of respondents believe that sales and technical support are the most important quality in their data centre technology infrastructure provider,' and he said barriers to new investment were also highlighted in the conference survey, with 37 per cent of respondents feeling that their data centre procurement teams are presented with solutions from vendors which 'lack integration or compatibility with their existing infrastructure.' 

The STULZ survey also found that, at the same time, one-third of respondents lack sufficient budget to achieve all that their objectives aim to achieve, and 17 per cent of respondents feel that vendors don't specify a clear return on investment when they recommend their plans or respond to requests for proposals.

However, STULZ says the survey did shed positive light on data centre manager vendor relationships, with just under half of all respondents feeling that they had a good working relationship with their vendors and work in a 'knife and fork' team approach to create better results.

'The survey confirms that we are finally seeing encouraging signs that companies are preparing to invest in IT Infrastructure following the economic downturn with decisions focused on deploying greener solutions.'