Leading Irish data centre operator Servecentric has seen a greater rate of change over the past 12 months than at any time previously over their 20 years in business. Driven by security and availability concerns, increased compliance requirements and new work practices, there has been a shift to remove core hardware from the head office to data centre colocation and public cloud services.
“Our client portfolio has traditionally been concentrated towards telecommunications, multinational and IT services/software development sectors, but now we are seeing real momentum in the indigenous SME and enterprise market,” said Servecentric CEO, Brian Roe.
He added: “It is difficult to fully determine why the Irish market has been slow to migrate core infrastructure from the head office (perceived incremental cost was certainly a factor), but SME and enterprise decision makers are now starting to appreciate the benefits of the data centre model which include improved communications services and choice, 24/7 support, lower maintenance overheads (with improved environmental conditions) and greater flexibility for their workforce location. There are also some clear benefits relating to insurance, compliance and regulatory related overheads, with the belt and braces security measures that come with purpose-built data centres.
“A key driver for the momentum in the SME and enterprise spaces has been the need to establish independence from the head office – giving staff and management greater geographical flexibility. But as IT and operations staff dig deeper, they are also appreciating that there is a whole set of security, compliance, connectivity, support and reliability benefits that they may not have initially considered as part of the picture.”
Security and flexibility drives data centre adoption by Irish firms
