New research has revealed that despite increased investment in cloud and colocation providers, 87% of data centre operators expect to increase their facility spending this year.

451 Research’s quarterly survey on data centre centres found that both medium-sized and large organisations expect to increase spending on data centres, with the most growth coming from healthcare and finance industries.

The primary targets for this increased spending are rack and cabling, power equipment and data centre infrastructure management software (DCIM), according to the study.

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Organisations surveyed cited Schneider Electric as their preferred provider in four out of seven facilities equipment and software categories, including universal power supplies (UPS), power distribution units (PDU), and racks and cabling, as well as DCIM.

Emerson Network Power follows closely in many categories and is the number one preferred computer room air conditioning and air handling equipment provider. Other vendors that ranked highly include Carrier, Caterpillar, Eaton, HP and Trane.

Data centre operators interviewed as part of this study provided detail regarding their need to modernise their facilities, as well as invest in innovative technologies, such as DCIM, to run their facilities more efficiently.

Organisations continue to consolidate their local data centres and server rooms in favour of a more centralised model supplemented by colocation and cloud resources.

Over the next two years, most organisations expect to close many of their smaller local data centres and server rooms, indicating a continued trend toward fewer overall sites.

However, the number of premium, centralised data centres – targets for data centre consolidation and migration projects – is increasing. 

While there will be more, larger sites, the total overall data centre square footage owned by enterprises is flat worldwide.

Of those organisations increasing spending, 37% are doing so to support data centre retrofits or upgrade projects.

Existing data centre will need to be upgraded, considering 62% of organisations would rather consolidate their IT infrastructure than build a new datacenter.

When organisations reach 75% data centre utilisation, they begin to evaluate the need for additional capacity – and are more likely to adopt colocation and cloud providers than to build a new data centre.

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Colocation and wholesale providers are becoming more important to enterprises as they provide reliable and secure data centre space and connectivity.

“To support growing business demands on IT, enterprises are freeing up budgets and investing in modernising neglected datacenter facilities,” said Dan Harrington, research director at 451 Research. “Those equipment vendors with offerings that target enterprise clients’ larger premium sites will see the greatest opportunity.

“Colocation and cloud service providers are well positioned to grow as enterprises require additional capacity and increasingly need to be more agile in responding to growing business demands. Facilities vendors who target colocation and cloud service providers also will benefit from this increased enterprise demand.”