Research Study Indicates Widespread Datacentre Expansions by European Companies During Next 24 Months

November 8, 2007; 10:14 AM
San Francisco and London -- Digital Realty Trust, Inc. (NYSE: DLR), a leading owner and manager of corporate datacentres and Internet gateways, is reporting new research data focused on the leading datacentre trends in the European market. The release of this data follows the publication of a similar study of the U.S. datacentre market earlier in 2007. This new European study is based on a recent poll of senior decision makers who are either directly responsible for datacentres or influence significant decisions related to datacentre operations at large European companies. The research was conducted for Digital Realty Trust by the respected research firm Campos Research & Analysis, the same firm that conducted the earlier study of datacentre-related initiatives in the U.S. The surveyed companies come from a wide range of industries, including financial services, manufacturing, professional services, packaged consumer goods, telecommunications, consumer services and information technology.

Key findings from the research study and additional data points are provided below:

• More than 80 percent of respondents have plans to expand their datacentres.

• 18 percent plan to expand their datacentre in the very near term (within the next 12 months).
• 67 percent plan to expand their datacentres within the next 24 months.
• 15 percent of respondents are in the planning stages for datacentre expansion that will happen more than 24 months from now.
• Of the study participants who are planning datacentre expansions, 79 percent plan to expand in two or more locations, indicating that these expansions will be complex, multi-site datacentre initiatives.
• The average size of the planned expansions is approximately 1,000 square metres (10,000 square feet).

• Disaster recovery initiatives were cited as the leading reason for expansions, but the need for additional network connectivity, upgraded cooling, more raised floor area, additional power, and new applications were also cited as key drivers for expansion plans.

• Respondents identified the following cities as their most preferred cities for the location of their datacentre expansions (in order of ranking):

• London
• Paris
• Dublin
• Amsterdam
• New York

• Nearly 60 percent of companies have developed a green strategy for their datacentres that will impact their future datacentre decisions.

• 74 percent of companies expect virtualization to reduce their space requirements, but they estimate this reduction to be 20 percent or less.

“Similar to our survey of the U.S. market earlier this year, this study of European datacentre initiatives paints a robust picture of the datacentre market: broad-based demand for datacentre space from a wide variety of industries, with strong growth prospects based on the project timelines looking out two years and beyond. The findings revealed that demand was even stronger than our own estimates; it is remarkable to see that in both Europe and the U.S. more than 80 percent of companies are planning datacentre expansions,” said Michael F. Foust, CEO of Digital Realty Trust.

Mr. Foust added, “One thing that is very clear from this European study and the earlier U.S. study is that datacentres are core to the operating infrastructure for companies today. Datacentres are no longer simply a closet full of servers that only the IT team worries about; datacentres are critical assets that the executive team and Board of Directors have as one of the key issues on their radar screen.”

“This second phase of our study is important because it puts the data into a global perspective, and confirms that the market can expect to see sustained demand for datacentre space throughout Europe and in the U.S. as companies implement their datacentre plans,” said Chris Crosby, Senior Vice President of Digital Realty Trust. “This study also underscored that we are focused on the right markets, with cities like London, Paris, Amsterdam and New York clearly being locations where European companies want to expand. Each of these markets has limited supplies of quality datacentre space, and Digital Realty Trust is well-positioned to serve that growing demand with our portfolio of world-class facilities in each of those markets.” 

A number of additional findings from the research study are as follows:

• Approximately 17 percent of companies have no redundancy for their electrical and cooling equipment in their current datacentres.

• Only half of companies have dedicated backups (2N) for their critical electrical systems.
  

• Three quarters of all respondents are planning to expand to datacentres with between approximately 500 and 2500 square metres (5,000-25,000 square feet) of raised floor space.

• When study participants were asked to rate the importance of several factors in selecting a geographic location for their datacentres, security was ranked as the most important criterion followed by accessibility for company personnel, telecom availability and power costs.
  

• Three out of every five respondents plan to use a partner to implement their expansion plans. Only 21 percent are planning to implement the expansion themselves.

Mr. Crosby also commented, “One interesting difference between the results of the U.S. and European studies is the leading reason behind these expansions. In Europe, disaster recovery is far and away the primary reason that companies cited for their expansion plans, while in the United States the deployment of new applications was the lead reason. The difference suggests that while demand will be strong in both markets, companies in the EU and the United States will be approaching their projects with very different mindsets and datacentre needs –an important distinction when responding to customers. Another interesting difference is that a smaller percentage of European companies are planning immediate expansions in the next 12 months (17 percent in Europe vs. 34 percent in the U.S.), but the percentages are nearly identical when you look out to 24 months. This confirms our belief that the European market is about 18 months behind the U.S. in its adoption of new facilities.” 

Digital Realty Trust will present the full findings of this research study at the Datacentre Dynamics London event on November 12-13, 2007. For more information about this event, visit www.datacentredynamics.com.

About the Methodology

Metrics reported in this study are based on Web-based surveys of IT decisionmakers at large corporations in five European countries: the U.K., Germany, France, the Netherlands and Ireland. All surveyed companies in the U.K., Germany and France have annual revenues of at least €1 billion and/or at least 5000+ employees. Due to the smaller sample size of companies in Ireland and the Netherlands that meet those criteria, surveyed companies in those two countries have minimum annual revenue of €100 million. All survey participants are directly involved in the process of managing corporate datacentres, implementing new datacentres or expanding existing datacentres. All participants were senior level executives, including CxOs, in MIS, IS or Finance. The survey was conducted in September 2007 and the sample size was 125.

About Digital Realty Trust, Inc.

Digital Realty Trust, Inc. owns, acquires, develops, redevelops and manages technology-related real estate. The Company is focused on providing Turn-Key Datacentre™ and Powered Base Building™ datacentre solutions for domestic and international tenants across a variety of industry verticals ranging from information technology and internet enterprises, to manufacturing and financial services. Digital Realty Trust's 67 properties, excluding one property held as an investment in an unconsolidated joint venture, contain applications and operations critical to the day-to-day operations of technology industry tenants and corporate enterprise datacentre tenants. Comprising approximately 12.0 million rentable square feet, including 1.7 million square feet of space held for redevelopment, Digital Realty Trust's portfolio is located in 26 markets throughout North America and Europe. For additional information, please visit Digital Realty Trust's website at http://www.digitalrealtytrust.com.