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Demand for specialised cleaning continues to grow as investment in ME&A data centres exceeds $ 6.6 billion in 2021

Dubai-based sustainable and technology-driven home maintenance specialist Hitches & Glitches (H&G), part of the Farnek Group, is witnessing a significant rise in demand for specialized cleaning, especially for the region’s booming data center business.

Demand for data center cleaning is surging due to the rapid rise in digital businesses throughout the region. Dependable data centers are vital, especially with the rapid escalation of internet technology and mobile connectivity. As such, it is no surprise that many businesses are adopting secure, efficient, and sustainable solutions to store their data.  

According to a Research & Markets report, the Middle East and Africa data center market witnessed investments of $6.55 billion in 2021, with investments forecast to rise to $12.19 billion within the next five years, growing at a CAGR of 10.90 % during 2022-2027.

Fueling the demand is 5G network deployment, IoT, smart cities, and the fourth industrial revolution. In particular, countries such as Israel, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, UAE, and Egypt have all attracted significant investments in recent years. Etisalat is the largest data center service provider in the UAE, with nine data centers spread across Dubai, Abu Dhabi, and Al Ain.

“Our experience over the past 18 months shows that demand for professional data centre cleaning services is increasing exponentially. Data centre managers now want to hire a specialist company to deliver high-quality cleaning services in these complex environments,” said Zohaib Azhar, Head of Operations, Hitches & Glitches.

Data center equipment is highly sensitive, and optimal performance is critical to their business. The equipment consists of switches, routers, hubs, UPS batteries, and racks, which collect dust & debris like any other object. However, the cleaning process is sophisticated and technical.

The dust particles and conductive ferrous metals accumulated on the circuit boards require highly trained, technically adept cleaners. Improper cleaning procedures can allow additional debris, leading to equipment overheating and malfunctioning. This also applies to all controlled environments, including data centers, data rooms, data halls & server rooms.

According to H&G, if left unchecked, contaminants, in the long run, could damage circuit boards, corrode metals, and cause disks and tape drives to fail, resulting in an outage. Adhering to stringent standard procedures such as the ISO 14644-1 2015 Class 8 standard becomes imperative for effective data center cleaning best practices, offering a comprehensive blueprint for international cleaning protocols within controlled environments.

H&G has provided controlled environment cleaning services to sectors such as Government, Telecommunication, Maritime, Banking & Infrastructure. It shows the importance and shifts away from traditional operations and maintenance (O&M) of data centers to a high degree of technical cleanliness and facility maintenance.

“Considering the amount that is being invested in data centres, the trend now is firmly towards professional and specialised cleaning, to ensure IT equipment is well maintained, consistently powered in a cool environment, with a high degree of cleanliness, mitigating the chance of a serious outage, or significant downtime,” added Azhar.

H&G always uses vacuum cleaners with high-efficiency particulate air (HEPA) filters to remove the dust & debris from IT equipment, which removes 99.97% of dust particles, bacteria, mold & metal particles. The surface of racks & doors is vacuumed and wiped with microfiber cloths.

“It is also essential to work with the airflow to avoid raising dust that is then blown towards the area you have already cleaned. Underfloor smoke detectors should be cleaned with the soft brush of the vacuum, while fire pipes should be cleaned effectively from top to bottom where the dust is invisible,” said Azhar.