Data Center 2025

An Industrywide Look at the Future of Data Center Ecosystems

Lynette Gordon

lynette.gordon@emerson.com

083 638 8000

Respondents

Emerson conducted a four-month long

industry-wide, global study into the

future of the data centre and solicited

viewpoints

• Customers

• Media analysts

• Industry partners

170

241

238

15921 Other

Latin America

Western Europe

Asia Pacific

United States

21%

18%

17%

15%

12%

10%7%

DC Mgmt

Exec. Mgmt

DC Operations

Project Mgmt

Engr. & Tech

IT Dev. & Admin

Other

Demographics

Less than 1 year

1 to 4 years

5 to 9 years

10 to 19 years

20 to 29 years

30 to 39 years

4%

17%

33%

31%

11%

4%

Years of experience working with data centres

Information Technology (IT) 18%Banking / Financial Services 17%

Manufacturing 16%Telecommunications 9%

Energy 5%Government, Military, Non-Profit 5%

Healthcare / Pharmaceutical 4%Education 4%

Construction 3%Transportation 2%

Consumer Products Retailer 2%Utilities 2%Apparel 2%

Internet / Software 2%Co-Location / Facility Mgmt 1%

Entertainment 1%Food and Beverage 1%

Legal 0%Other Industry 8%

Primary Industry of Respondents

51%

Three Visions of Data Center 2025

o Lower energy efficiency than today

o Data centres will be larger

o Increased use of renewable energy, but not by much

36% 40% 22%Conservative Moderate Progressive

o Improved energy efficiency

o Data centres will be 50%-80% smaller

o Obtain 1/5th of power from solar energy

o Much greater efficiency

o Data centre will be much smaller- a 10th of current size

o 30% of power from renewables

The 2025 Data Center …

…will consume lower energy

9%20%

7%

31%33%

% o

f R

esp

on

den

ts

Data centre infrastructure will be more efficient

IT infrastructure will be more efficient

Other Improvements

84%

67%

8%

Over 35% of respondents believe that we will not be

more efficient

…will be smaller in size

Larger than today

Same size as today

Half as large as today

One fifth as large as today

One-tenth as large as today

27%

14%

30%

18%10%

% o

f R

esp

on

den

ts

Over 55% of Population believes that data centres

will shrink in size

...will be Powered by Alternative FuelsSolar

Nuclear

Natural Gas

Wind

Coal

Oil

Fuel cells

Geothermal

Tidal

Other sources

21%

15%

14%

12%

8%

8%

6%

5%

5%

6%

% o

f R

esp

on

den

ts

33%31%

36%

Much Lower

Lower

Same or Higher

Future Data Centre Energy Consumption will be

... will be Self Healing & highly Utilized

30%

31%

28%

9%

80-99%

60-79%

100%

<60%Same as today

Self-Optimizing, Self-Healing and Unmanned

Self-Optimizing

Comprehensive Visibility across all systems and layers

43%

25%

29%

3%

Only 40% think that Capacity Utilization will

be above 80%

% o

f R

esp

on

den

ts

% o

f R

esp

on

den

ts

...will have much higher power density

10 kW 20 kW 40 kW 80 kW 100 kW

12%

18%

29% 26%

15%

Expectations of much bigger shift in rack power density. Rack density has averaged

below 10kW/rack for past 7 years*

* Emerson Network Power’s Data Center Users’ GroupTM

Total Europe Germany France Italy Spain UK

30%22% 26%

10% 14%23%

38%

27%32%

50%

30%32%

23%

19%

24% 25%

16%

30%

36%23%

29%

13% 16%0%

23%

18%

27%

10%7% 5% 8% 7%

0% 4% 5%

...will use more efficient back up power

High-efficiency UPS

Momentary Duty Inverter

Software Failover

DC UPS

Other

% of Respondents

Total Europe Germany France Italy Spain UK

41%34%

45%

22%30% 33% 32%

20%

18%

14%

15%

33%

7%

32%

19%

22%18%

30%

19%

37%

5%

11% 17%18%

22%

15%15%

16%

9% 8% 5%11%

4% 7%16%

...will use novel thermal management

% of Respondents

Air + Liquid

Ambient Air

Cold Air

Liquid

Immersive

Less than 99.67%

99.67%99.75%99.98%99.99%Better than 99.99%

7%6%

16%18%24%

30%

...will have higher availability expectations%

of

Res

po

nd

ents

…will need to cope with high skill retirements

56%50%

70%

49% 48%

23% 37%

10%

21% 25%

7%

4%6%

11% 8%

6%4%

7%8% 6%

8% 5% 7% 11% 12%

No - Career Change

Yes, I will be in the industry in 2025

No - I'll be retired

No - Due to changes in the data centre industry

No - Other Reason

1% - 9%10% - 19%20% - 39%40% - 59%60% - 79%80% - 99%100%1%3%

11%

20%

33%

25%

9%

…used as the outsourced cloud

Total Europe Germany France Italy Spain UK

Avg. % of Computing in Cloud 67% 61% 65% 62% 60% 49% 70%

Avg. % Utilization of Compute Capacity

68% 63% 65% 70% 58% 51% 66%

% of computing in the cloud (outsourced) in 2025

% o

f R

esp

on

den

ts

Datacentre Customer Drivers & Needs

Technology & Market Drivers

Datacentre Owner/ Operator Pressures

Budget Management

Missed SLAs, Downtime Costs, Loss of Trust

Increasing Number of Business Critical Apps

Rapid Growth Of Data

Mobile Computing

Server Virtualization

Public & Private Clouds

Inability To Plan; Long Lead Time For New Capacity

Business Factors

Compliance & Data Security

Security ThreatsLack Of Visibility

Capacity Management

Uptime & Availability

Low Productivity & Loss Of Flexibility

Core Problems That Need Solutions

Increasing Operational Costs

Imp

ort

ance

1

2

3

4

More about the study

The full Data Center 2025 report can be found at http://www.EmersonNetworkPower.eu/DataCenter2025.

To join the conversation, email your thoughts to DataCenter2025@Emerson.com