Data centre spending in the Asia Pacific region is expected to rise in 2014 as companies invest more in services and energy efficient facilities according to a Datacentre Dynamics (DCD) census.
The 2013 DCD Industry Census found total investment across the region reached US$14.3 billion in 2013, up 9.4 per cent on 2012’s figure of US$13.1 billion. Spending is forecast to grow another 8.6 per cent in 2014, driven by investment in data centre infrastructure management (DCIM), containerised data centres and modular offerings.
The census was conducted with 521 companies from countries including China, India, Australia and New Zealand.
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According to the census, China accounted for the largest share of data centre investment (30 per cent) in 2013, closely followed by India with 25 per cent. Australia and New Zealand were the third largest investors this year.
During 2013, 43 per cent of investment went into cooling equipment, followed by cabling/switching equipment (40 per cent) and power protection offerings (36 per cent).
Companies also invested in server virtualization (46 per cent), network upgrades (36 per cent), storage systems upgrades (32 per cent) and cloud infrastructure architecture (30 per cent).
According to the census, the strongest investment growth in IT optimisation is expected to come from cloud infrastructure such as hybrid cloud, data centre automation software, and system upgrades.
“Australian companies show a broadly higher level of investment in IT optimisation solutions to balance the rising expenditure on facilities,” read the report of the census.
Outsourcing
Approximately US$4.9 billion was invested in APAC, excluding Japan, on outsourcing services. This was a 14 per cent increase on 2012's figure of US$4.3 billion.
Most outsourcing services investment was spent on infrastructure-as-a-service (26 per cent), hosting services (22 per cent) and managed services (19 per cent).
Outsourced data centre space in the APAC region increased to 24.5 per cent this year, compared with a 20.1 per cent increase in 2012.
According to the census, the use of outsourcing is highest in the finance sector due to demand for reliable and secure facilities offered by third party providers.
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