Almost 50% of mid-sized enterprises will have significant server co-location needs over the coming 12 months, and will struggle to satisfy them, according to new research by Vanson Bourne.

The survey of 200 senior IT decision-makers, conducted on behalf of the independent virtual network operator Adapt, found that companies of 500 to 1,000 employees were suffering from the same kind of data centre issues as larger organisations. These included a lack of capacity, power constraints and a general shortage of appropriate sites for building new data centres, particularly in the South East.

The finance and banking sector showed the greatest need for server co-location or hosting services. Of the businesses surveyed in this sector, 45% said their requirements for data centre co-location facilities will increase within the next 12 months. Demand here is being driven by industry legislation such as the Markets in Financial Instruments Directive (MiFID) and the Sarbanes-Oxley Act, as well as strong organic growth.

Across industries, demand is being fuelled by the introduction of new technologies such as IP telephony and data-intensive content management processes. But surprisingly, 43% of enterprises still don’t have a contingency plan in place to manage their growing server co-location requirements.