Five Data Centre Industry Trends to Track

Data centre trends and strategies must take into account the current and projected course of the organisation for businesses to remain competitive in our ever-changing world. This includes factors such as data centre security trends, data centre storage trends, and many other data centre trends that must form part of the organisation’s IT asset management strategies, and which can be supplemented with quality IT asset disposition services as well. 

Industry Trends for Data Centres 

Pre-pandemic, data centres had already been undergoing significant changes in organisations. From shifts to data centre cloud services, marginally increased data storage, and the need for heightened cybersecurity and network security in response to the growth in ransomware attacks and costly data breaches, change was already a constant in the data centre industry. 

The pandemic and the subsequent shift to remote work, for example, have accelerated change significantly. CBRE anticipates that the hyper scaling felt during 2020 will begin to level off in 2021, but demand will nevertheless remain high as supply grows to meet that demand. Below are five data centre industry trends to track for 2022: 

1. Distributed IT Assets

The big question when it comes to IT assets is: where are the devices? Pre-2020, business-owned IT assets such as cell phones, tablets, and laptops may have been used outside of the office, but IT asset managers at least could rest assured that the lion’s share of computer workstations and other company devices were located on-premises. 

This meant that identifying IT assets and processing them at their end of life (EoL) was a relatively straightforward matter. Today, the rise of remote work and a diaspora of sorts of corporate assets now spread across cities, counties, and perhaps even across countries in the private homes of employees can cause all sorts of logistics problems for IT asset managers. 

How, when, and importantly, from where these devices access data centre IT services can present vulnerabilities and problems of scalability within organizations. To remedy the problem of disparate IT assets, data centre services such as remote IT can lower costs, facilitate redeployment, and efficiently collect and process EoL IT assets. 

2. Cloud Storage Management

Of its many advantages, cloud-based storage stood out during the peak of the pandemic in 2020 as being built to scale, which is ideal for large organizations that suddenly experienced spikes in data centre usage to handle more data from more users than what would have been anticipated during a more ‘normal’ year. 

Businesses and institutions across Europe – both before the pandemic and increasingly so in 2021 – are making the shift to solutions such as software-as-a-service (SaaS) and cloud-based solutions at a rapid pace. 

For instance, Gartner forecasts that government IT investments around the world will continue to shift away from devices and data centres towards software and IT services, amounting to almost half of the $452 billion spent in government IT investments in 2021. 

Organizations wishing to partially or completely shift from data centres to cloud-based solutions will therefore require secure, professional data centre decommissioning services from reputable IT asset disposition providers. Moreover, secure data centre migration services will also be needed to ensure that no vulnerabilities present themselves during the migration of data from a decommissioned data centre to another data centre (cloud-based or otherwise).  

3. Bigger Hard Drives, Bigger Opportunities

Higher capacity drives are, as one would expect, on their way. Both HDD and SSD flash storage are now mainstream technologies widely used within organizations, and HDDs are likely to continue seeing plenty of use simply due to their low cost per gigabyte when compared to flash storage. 

More storage capacity on bigger drives means there are more opportunities for the data centre industry and IT asset managers. For one thing, condensing space by rotating out older hard drives for high-capacity modern drives economizes space within the data centre. Furthermore, high-capacity drives can be parsed and analysed more easily. 

This is all well and good, but these new high-capacity drives still have EoL considerations, and organizations rotating out older drives need to ensure that their hard drive disposal is secure and compliant with state and federal data disposal laws. This means having ITAD services such as secure data destruction and erasure and hard drive data destruction that minimizes the risks of data breaches while also not contributing to the growing e-waste crisis. 

4. Automated Data Centres

In 2020, many organizations across Europe simply couldn’t have employees on-premises. Now in 2021, a labour shortage is driving the need for automated workplace processes including full or partial automation of data centres. 

AI orchestration and automated data centres (at least partially) are already here, for around 10% of organizations as of 2020, and that number is only expected to grow to around 50% by 2025. What does increasing automation mean for data centres? 

For one, less impact will be experienced by labour supply shortages, but there are other benefits too. Consider that no lights need to be left on, no restrooms need to be provided, and no lunchrooms for employees. In some data centres, it may even be feasible to eliminate oxygen entirely, which would eliminate the risk of fires breaking out. This could also allow for IT assets to be run at higher temperatures without the typical fire hazards associated with non-controlled environments. 

5. Greater Demand for Sustainable IT Asset Disposition

There’s no tiptoeing around the issue: electronic waste is a global tipping point. The pollution of landfills around the world, including here in Europe, of computers, hard drives, and other IT assets with rare metals and minerals must be addressed with sustainable, environmentally friendly approaches to data disposal. 

It is one of the fastest-growing trends for IT asset managers in the data centre industry as more and more of the public and organizations realize the gravity of the situation. The good news is that sustainable practices such as circular economy models do exist to mitigate the impact of discarded IT assets. 

The IT hardware supply within organizations doesn’t always need to end up in a landfill. ITAD providers such as Wisetek are committed to sustainable practices including a zero-landfill policy. Through the clever use of re-use, remarketing, and refurbishment of redundant, EoL IT assets, organizations can greatly improve their sustainability commitment while simultaneously saving money and helping Mother Nature. 

Forming a Response to Data Center Industry Trends 

The above five data centre industry trends have significant effects on how IT asset managers within organizations will likely perform their tasks and duties in the coming years. There’s a lot of change happening at a lightning-fast pace, which is why consulting with a professional ITAD provider can help ease the burden of adapting to these changes and to ensure business operations run smoothly, securely, and efficiently in response to these trends. 

Wisetek is a global leader in IT asset disposition services, including data centre services. Our team is equipped with the experience, skills, and industry expertise required to provide quality support to IT asset managers in the data centre industry or within individual data centres. Through decades of experience, the experts at Wisetek are well aware of data centre industry trends and can forecast changes in trends as they happen. 

Contact Wisetek Today  

The global ITAD leaders at Wisetek are your trusted partner for data centre IT services and secure, professional IT asset disposition. Get in touch with Wisetek to learn more about our services for businesses and institutions worldwide. 

For more information, please contact enquiries@wisetek.net or visit our website.