industry news
Changes to ISO
standard will require
more rigorous testing
8 Solutions has warned that upgrades
and updates to ISO regulation
standard 14644 will require more
rigorous testing and reporting to meet
the new guidelines.
ISO 14644 is the international
standard for measuring the
cleanliness of cleanrooms. Last
updated in 2005, the changes
reflect the progress of cleanroom
technology over the past 10 years,
and the importance of ensuring that
data centres are kept to the correct
level of cleanliness to ensure that the
integrity of the IT systems installed is
not compromised.
Failure to clean to the new
standard could increase the data
centre’s liabilities, according to Gary
Hall, head of operational delivery at
8 Solutions.
‘We have retrained our
technicians to address the new
Standard,’ Hall explained.
‘This will ensure that our
clients are getting the correct ISO
classification of cleanliness and
that they do not invalidate any
manufacturers’ warranties on IT
equipment from failure to clean
correctly. These are positive moves
for our industry.’
Data centres need to be kept
at the ISO 14664-1 level 8 of
cleanliness or better to ensure
that the risk from contamination is
minimised. In practice this means
ensuring that particles of a size of
less than 0.5 microns are removed
from the environment where IT
equipment is kept.
8
Data centre colocation market annualised revenue
projected to reach $33bn worldwide by end of 2018
451 Research projects the global colocation market will reach $33.2bn by 2018 in its latest
quarterly Datacenter Knowledgebase (DCKB) release, which tracks nearly 4,800 data centres
operated by 1,286 companies worldwide.
In Q4 2015, the data centre colocation market saw $27.0bn in annualised revenue. The
majority of this revenue (54.6 per cent) continues to be derived from local providers with sub$500m in annualised colocation revenues.
Kelly Morgan, research director, North American Datacenters, 451 Research, noted, ‘2015
was a record year for the data centre, hosting, and managed services sector, with the highest
number of deals since we began tracking it. But there are still hundreds of data centre providers
around the world that will continue to consolidate, either to gain scale or add services or both.
This is not because the industry is in trouble; the move to cloud continues to drive strong
demand for leased data centre space. It is because the industry is maturing, and providers are
becoming more strategic in their approach to customers.’
Among the largest providers, Equinix is the market leader in the combined wholesale and
retail colocation market with a share of 8.1 per cent of global annualised wholesale and retail
colocation revenue. Digital Realty, primarily a wholesale provider, is the second largest supplier in
terms of revenue at 5.6 per cent, but leads the global market in terms of operational square feet
with a 7.8 per cent share globally.
451 Research estimates that the global colocation market will grow in terms of total operational
square feet from today’s 132.4 million square feet to 176.5 million by the end of 2018.
ZENIUM PREDICTS TURKISH ONLINE GAMING
TREND WILL DRIVE UP DATA CENTRE DEMANDS
Zenium expects the buoyant online gaming
industry in Turkey to significantly impact data
centre demand at its Istanbul One data centre.
Reporting strong interest from the gaming
market, Zenium predicts that enhanced
connectivity, high density power and latency
levels will be needed to support the growing
number of online gamers in the region. It
expects that these requirements will convince
the gaming sector to outsource data centre
requirements as they seek highly resilient
infrastructure in order to stay competitive.
‘The online gaming industry in Turkey is
on the cusp of major expansion both in terms
of the number of gamers and the number of
games publishers coming into the market,’ said
Aslıhan Güreşcier, Zenium’s country manager
in Turkey. ‘Ensuring that the right data centre
infrastructure is available to support product
development and testing, through to large scale
on-demand delivery, will be critical to the future
success of these businesses.’
Widespread use of the Internet in Turkey
has led to 54 per cent of Internet users
enjoying online gaming, according to the
Turkish Game Developers’ Association,
delivering $464m in revenue in 2015 alone.
The growing popularity of smartphones,
4G and mobile gaming is also expected to
increase the total number of Turkish gamers
well beyond the current level of 22.5 million.