Consolidation and cost reduction remain the top priorities for European datacentres, according to new research, but the pressure to standardise on new hardware and software means savings are rarely achievable in the short term.

Symantec’s annual State of the Data Center report, published yesterday, surveyed 500 global companies including 167 from the Europe Middle East and Africa (EMEA) region.

It found that 52 percent are looking to consolidate the servers, applications and operating systems in use, with around half saying that they still struggle to manage complex infrastructure built on different hardware and software from different vendors.

Symantec chief scientist Guy Bunker knows that consolidating existing systems onto new energy efficient platforms is an expensive exercise. But he argues that using a single software infrastructure that audits existing systems and makes the data centre easier to manage can minimise downtime and reduce operational costs.

“Standardisation does cost money, but the savings outweigh it. A lot can be done with software that allows data centres to re-use the hardware already in place,” Bunker said. “Getting rid of decommissioned servers also reduces electricity and air conditioning bills, as well as license costs.”

As hardware vendors introduce new storage arrays or blade racks, they are rarely integrated into existing management platforms, meaning new software tools have to be installed. EMEA datacentres use an average of 11.62 server and application management tools, above the global average of 9.8, according to the survey.

Symantec’s Data Center Foundation offering is designed to provide companies with a single management platform for servers, storage and applications.

“A lot of people realise that if datacentres are so complex and so unmanageable today, how on earth are they going to cope tomorrow unless they take steps now,” said Bunker.