In the North American & Global Data Center Financial Investments Pt. 1, we covered global and North American data center and colocation services growth. In part two, we are going to highlight top sectors of colocation services use and some very interesting North American/global data center energy statistics.
Top Colocation and Data Center Service Industries
A recent study showed the top three global industries who are most heavily investing in web hosting/colocation services are IT service companies, financial service providers and public administration (government). The reason behind IT service companies investing in colocation solutions is pretty simple to understand. Like any other company, an IT provider wants to limit financial output while maximizing solution capabilities. Investing in data center services supplies this goal.
Concerning financial service providers, the reason for colocation use is found in both security and applications. As you would imagine, one of the main concerns for financial service companies is security. Handling sensitive consumers and B2B financial information means accessing, storing and transferring that data in a secure manner. Colocation and Cloud hosting providers offer both the virtual security needed to keep information secure and the physical security needed to keep hardware holding said data safe.
As for government bodies, local municipalities are turning to data center solutions to lower IT footprint. On the other hand, large government bodies are turning to data center solutions to help harness massive quantities of data. All we have to say on this matter is, see Edward Snowden.
All of the global and North American data center and colocation services utilization comes with a growing energy footprint.
Colocation and Data Center Energy Consumption
There is no hiding this. With more industries and consumers investing in data center solutions, the power consumption and overall energy footprint of said services is on the rise. It has been said before that even as global data center energy consumption rises, the use of data center infrastructures greatly reduces overall IT energy consumption.
Since 2011, power consumption by North American data centers rose by nearly seven gigawatts (one billion watts). In 2011, North American data centers used 5.86GW. By 2014, North American data centers will have used 12.24GW (estimated). For the years between: in 2012, 10.72GW and in 2013, 11.55GW.
Likewise, since 2011, overall energy consumption by global data centers rose by more than 40GW. In 2011, overall power use by global data centers was 14.06GW. By the end of 2014, that figure will rise to 47.3GW (estimated). For the years between: in 2012, 38.11GW and in 2013, 42.84GW.
The question remains, what does the rise of data center energy consumption mean for global environmental footprints? While we can’t answer this question here, we can confidently state that study after study has shown the use of data centers drastically reduces IT energy footprint.
In the last part of this series, we are going to cover data center growth by city in North America and Europe along with a whopping statistic concerning New York City data center energy consumption.