SAN FRANCISCO, Feb. 25, 2020 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Data Center World, the leading global conference for data center, facilities and IT infrastructure professionals, reveals findings from the fourth edition of its annual State of the Data Center report. The report includes knowledgeable insight from more than 150 data center professionals and highlights the biggest trends, concerns, and shifts impacting the industry.
"2020 is a year for us to look back to see just how much we've accomplished. It's also a time for us to look ahead and become inspired by where we're all going,” said Bill Kleyman, Executive Vice President of Digital Solutions, Switch, and author of the report. “For our fourth edition of the report, we introduced new sections, new questions, and gathered new insights into cloud, edge, hiring new talent, and of course, the data center. Diving deeper than ever before, we received feedback from the AFCOM community, as well as its AFCOM think tank, the Data Center Institute, to better understand the major concerns impacting our industry."
Below are just a few findings from this year’s report:
DCIM is Now a Complete Practice
As the modern data center evolves, the way industry professionals manage these critical environments must evolve with it. According to the report, DCIM is no longer just a piece of software, but an entire practice of managing the data center. Key highlights include:
- 77% of respondents foresee more DCIM integration with virtualization and cloud solutions, including 27% who are already seeing it
- 73% of respondents are most likely to have currently implemented security, up 9 percentage points from 2019
Data Center Building, Renovation, and Management Begins to Plateau
For the first time in the State of the Data Center report history, industry professionals suggest that data center building, renovation, and management is beginning to plateau. Instead, data center leaders seem to be focused on leveraging the space they already have to increase rack density and improve operations. According to the survey:
- The average number of data centers across all locations is between 2-3 facilities, down from 12 in 2019
- An average of 1-2 data centers will be renovated or expanded over the next 12-36 months, down from about 4 in 2019
“Right now, I believe we’re all experiencing ‘the accordion effect.’ That is, our industry will contract and then expand again. This is a very cyclical industry that focuses on being centralized, decentralized, and then centralized again,” said a survey respondent.
Security Concerns Continue to Grow
As data continues to grow, its value will become even more apparent to not only the organizations themselves, but also to criminals. According to the report, the biggest security concerns among professionals are:
- Ransomware (58%)
- Outside human threats (50%)
- Advanced persistent threats (46%) such as theft of IT and corporate data
- Inside human threats (41%)
- DDoS (37%)
The full findings from the 2020 State of the Data Center Report, which include many more insights, will be presented during Bill Kleyman’s keynote address at Data Center World 2020. To download a copy of the full report when it becomes available on March 17th, you may sign up at AFCOM.com
To learn more about Data Center World and to register for the 2020 event, visit: datacenterworld.com
About Data Center World:
Data Center World is the global conference for data center, facilities, and IT professionals. It offers premier education, abundant networking, and the broadest access to best-in-class vendors. Designed to help data center and IT infrastructure professionals with challenging issues, Data Center World presents top quality knowledge without bias towards a specific vendor product or service. Data Center World will be held March 16-19, 2020 at the Henry B. González Convention Center in San Antonio, TX. Data Center World is brought to you by Informa Tech.
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Heather Donner
Data Center World PR
Heather.Donner@informa.com