Gartner: Head north for half-price data storage

Analyst bets on Norway and Sweden as the best places to grab a datacentre bargain

Tech firms on the hunt for cheaper colocation costs should consider moving their facilities to northern Europe, according to Gartner.

The analyst said the low energy prices and cooler conditions there create an opportunity for tech firms to save up to 50 per cent on their datacentre costs.

Currently, London, Amsterdam, Frankfurt and Paris are the major datacentre capitals for European business, Gartner claims, but cities in Norway and Sweden could be the new hubs in coming years.

Gartner claims that since 2010, power costs in the two countries have fallen by five per cent compared with the EU average rising by 13 per cent over the same period. On top of the cheaper energy prices, natural cooling facilities provided by the chillier environment is another way to claw back cash.

But upping sticks to northern Europe to save money should not be a decision taken lightly, Gartner's research director Tiny Haynes said.

"It's important to weigh up several key decision factors when considering moving workloads away from the major colocation hubs to Northern Europe," he said.

"However, in most organisations there are several IT functions such as data warehousing or browser-based apps that simply do not warrant the significantly increased running costs of colocation in a major hub."