Data Center Knowledge – Outsourcing Data Centres: The View from Europe May 24th, 2011

Nick Razey is the CEO and co-founder of Next Generation Data Limited, owner and operator of the NGD Europe mega data centre in South Wales, UK.

Data centres are one of life’s necessities. But as global demand for compute power continues to rise exponentially, driven as much (or more) by cloud and web-based applications as the traditional needs for secure data storage, many data centres, even comparatively new ones of less than 10 years, are struggling to keep up. The sheer scale of the secure physical spaces required, let alone the growing power and energy implications, are presenting data centre users and professionals with unprecedented challenges.

Jones Lang LaSalle’s last Data Centre Barometer survey among European stakeholders, including corporate users, carriers/integrators/web hosters and colocation operators and investors, found a significant swing towards outsourced solutions with around 75 percent in favor compared to just 50 percent 18 months earlier. These findings, among others, combined with the continuing solid performance and growth of local and global independent operators, show the market for outsourcing some or all of the data centre estate to third parties to be in good health.

More of the Data Center Knowledge article from Nick Razey

Alex Carroll

Managing Member at Lifeline Data Centers

Alex, co-owner, is responsible for all real estate, construction and mission critical facilities: hardened buildings, power systems, cooling systems, fire suppression, and environmentals. Alex also manages relationships with the telecommunications providers and has an extensive background in IT infrastructure support, database administration and software design and development. Alex architected Lifeline’s proprietary GRCA system and is hands-on every day in the data center.