Datacentres across Europe are dangerously close to exceeding their limits with the majority having reached 82 per cent of their capacity, HP research has revealed.

The Data Centre Transformation report, by Coleman Parkes Research on behalf of HP, also showed that 60 per cent of companies plan to invest in improving facilities.
More than 1,000 chief information officers and business unit heads from companies across Europe took part in the research.

Ben Stollard, sales director at VAR VirtualizeIT, said virtualisation can free up capacity, but only if applied to the majority of an IT estate.

“We have clients that have not ordered a new physical server in 18 months and these are on estates running over 500 virtual servers. The ones that continue to bring in virtualisation in a piecemeal and tactical manner will, conversely, continue to struggle with capacity.”

Paul Hickingbotham, solutions manager at storage distributor Hammer, added: “The issues of cost and capacity are being addressed, but cautiously.”