Critical.
Authoritative.
Strategic.
Subscribe to CIO Magazine »

Australian data centre market requires $8 billion construction boost: IDC

Current level of investment will not meet demand in 2012 and beyond, says analyst firm
IDC Australia chief of research, Matt Oostveen.

IDC Australia chief of research, Matt Oostveen.

Some $8 billion worth of additional data centre facilities will be needed if Australia is going to have a sustainable IT economy in the future, according to analyst firm IDC Australia.

IDC Australia chief of research, Matt Oostveen, said this outlook incorporates a calculation drawn from the Gershon review.

The review, which was publicly released in October 2009, noted the absence of a whole-of-government strategic plan for data centres could cost taxpayers up to $1 billion over 15 years if a more coordinated approach isn’t implemented.

“If the review is not executed to the letter, that would mean there is even greater demand and the [construction] amount of $8 billion would increase,” Oostveen said.

According to IDC Australia research, supply construction was worth $2.3 billion from 1 January to 31 October 2011.

“In 2012, the market will come to the realisation that with the introduction of the National Broadband Network [NBN], a carbon tax driving up the cost of power, Cloud computing adoption and the Gershon review we are going to find out that we still don’t have enough data centre space,” he said.

“It’s one thing to have bandwidth and a network but there are a lot of situations currently playing out that will drive up the requirement for data centre space."

According to Oostveen, Australian-based data centre companies, such as NextDC, and overseas vendors with speciality in the data centre space, such as Equinix, will be busy constructing in 2012.

He added that if the efficiencies forecast in the Gershon review were to be realised, then agencies and departments need to use the Federal Government data centre panel which is set in place for the next five years.

The panel aims to provide agencies with an improved process to procure data centre facilities and services.

Oostveen gave the example of government departments circumventing the panel because of special circumstances in their departments.

Follow Hamish Barwick on Twitter: @HamishBarwick

Follow Computerworld Australia on Twitter: @ComputerworldAU

Join the CIO Australia group on LinkedIn. The group is open to CIOs, IT Directors, COOs, CTOs and senior IT managers.

More about: Equinix, etwork, Federal Government, IDC
References show all

Comments

Post new comment

The content of this field is kept private and will not be shown publicly.
Users posting comments agree to the CIO comments policy.
Login or register to link comments to your user profile, or you may also post a comment without being logged in.
Related Coverage
Related Whitepapers
Latest Stories
Community Comments
Tags: data centres, Gershon Review, IDC Australia, Matt Oostveen, NextDC
Latest Blog Posts
Whitepapers
  • Guidance for Calculation of Efficiency (PUE) in Data Centers
    The benefits of determining data center infrastructure efficiency as part of an effective energy management plan are widely recognised. The standard metrics of Power Usage Effectiveness (PUE) and its reciprocal Data Center Infrastructure Efficiency1 (DCIE) have emerged as recognised standards. This paper defines a standard approach to collecting data from data centers and showing how to use it to calculate PUE, with a focus on what to do with data that is confusing or incomplete.
    Learn more »
  • Fixing Your Dropbox Problem - How the Right Data Protection Strategy Can Help
    It’s estimated that more than 50 million people have used public cloud storage services such as Dropbox to share and exchange files. Public cloud services are so easy to use that their openness can undermine existing IT policies regarding the transmission of confidential data. With data volumes threatening to overwhelm onsite storage, IT managers are looking to find a solution that’s affordable and secure. This paper details a simple three-step approach to helping users manage access to the public cloud without placing your data or your business at risk. Read on.
    Learn more »
  • Oracle BPM Suite 11g: BPM without Barriers
    Over the years vendor specialists built tools to simplify a subset of the overall complex process like workflow, or enterprise application integration. Business process management suite software introduced the promise of a comprehensive solution to manage all enterprise processes and to do so with greater efficiency. Read on.
    Learn more »
All whitepapers
rhs_login_lockGet exclusive access to Invitation only events CIO, reports & analysis.
Recent comments