Companies caught off guard by big data in 2011, says Oracle

Oracle's second annual Datacentre Index highlights that companies in Europe, the Middle East and Africa are having to rethink their datacentre strategies in 2012 due to the challenge posed by big data.

Of the 949 managers in large organisations across the region surveyed, 44 per cent of respondents indicated that they only used in-house datacentres, down from 60 per cent from the first index, which was carried out 10 months ago.

Oracle argues that companies are choosing to respond to large increases in data handling by externalising some of their datacentre capabilities.

This is supported by 56 per cent of respondents indicating that these external datacentres are being used to cope with increased volume, up from 40 per cent in the previous index.

"Wrestling with big data is going to be the single biggest IT challenge businesses face over the next two years," said Luigi Freguia, senior vice president, systems, Oracle EMEA.

"By the end of that period they will either have got it right or they will be very seriously adrift of their own business and the threats and opportunities posed by big data," he added.

In the last index 17 per cent of respondents saw no need for a new datacentre in the foreseeable future. This figure has now dropped to just eight per cent, indicating that very few enterprises will not be investing in new datacentre capabilities to accommodate big data.

However, Clive Longbottom, analyst for Quocirca, the firm that carried out the research for Oracle, argued that this change in sentiment cannot solely be attributed to big data.

"This is not just because of big data. Many have found that their existing datacentres just can't cope with the move to increased equipment densities, due to power and cooling issues, whereas others will have just run out of space," said Longbottom.

"Others will have come to the conclusion that trying to keep up to speed with datacentre facility technology is too expensive, and that co-location is a good solution, as someone else can have those problems to deal with," he added.

"A pretty complex mix of things overall, but big data will have its part to play in the overall move towards using external datacentre facilities."