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Uptime Institute survey reveals strong industry growth as operators prepare for sustainability demands
Findings from Uptime Institute ’ s recent survey highlight the growing , industry-wide need to achieve meaningful efficiency gains , evolve sustainability reporting practices , prevent costly outages and much more .
Uptime Institute has announced the release of its 12th Annual Global Data Center Survey . The findings show an industry that is growing , dynamic and increasingly resilient , but still working to address increasing pressure for sustainability progress and reporting , continuing staffing shortages , supply chain delays , costly outages and other complex challenges .
“ The global digital infrastructure sector continues to enjoy strong growth and expansion , despite the many obstacles operators are facing today ,” said Andy Lawrence , Executive Director of Research , Uptime Institute Intelligence . “ We ’ ve seen the industry invest in increased resiliency and reliability , but there ’ s still work to be done when it comes to improving efficiency , environmental sustainability , outage prevention , staffing pipelines and more .”
Uptime ’ s annual Global Data Center Survey is the largest and most comprehensive in the digital infrastructure industry . It provides detailed insights into the digital critical infrastructure landscape and a sense of its future trajectory . Key findings from the 2022 report include :
• Many data center operators are unprepared for mounting sustainability requirements and regulations – Most respondents say they report on overall data center power use and PUE , but many still are not tracking critical environmental metrics . Although 63 % of operators believe authorities in their region will require them to publicly report environmental data in the next five years , just 37 % collect and report carbon emissions data ( a slight increase over 33 % in 2021 ) and only 39 % currently report their water use ( a 12 % drop compared to 2021 ). New laws , standards and requirements will force operators to address these gaps and establish more stringent sustainability tracking and reporting practices in the coming years .
• More operators are investing to bolster data center resiliency – Data center owners and operators are making significant investments in the resiliency of their physical infrastructure , with about 40 % of respondents reporting increased redundancy levels at their primary data centers in the past three to five years . Power and cooling systems have received similar attention , with a third of operators upgrading either or both .
• Outages are becoming more expensive and are still far too frequent – The share of all outages costing operators over US $ 1 million has reached 25 %, a significant increase from 15 % in 2021 . In 2022 , 60 % of operators reported experiencing an outage ( regardless of severity ) in the past three years – down from 69 % in 2021 and 78 % in 2020 . Although the data indicates a trend towards improved outage rates , the frequency of outages is still much too high and with more than two-thirds now costing operators upwards of US $ 100,000 , the consequences are getting worse .
Uptime ’ s 2022 Global Data Center Survey also includes findings on industry attitudes towards nuclear energy , server refresh rates , rack density trends and more .
Last year ’ s study took place in H1 2022 and includes responses from around 800 data center owners and operators responsible for managing infrastructure at the world ’ s largest IT organizations . It also includes insights from 700 data center suppliers , designers and advisors worldwide . p
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