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Demand for specialised data centre cleaning will grow exponentially says Hitches & Glitches

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

The forecast comes from the unprecedented demand for computing capacity following a sudden and significant shift to online working due to the COVID-19 pandemic, compounded by cloud computing technologies and the notable surge in online shopping, especially food retailing.

Kelvin Vargheese, Director of H&G, commented: “We would expect even greater demand for data centers as businesses in the UAE come to terms with their new working environments, which has also been further complicated by increased reliance on the internet due to people working from home and children studying at home too!

“More generally of course, this has added to ongoing growth in cloud, big data, and IoT services, as well as network upgrades to support 5G,” he added.

To underscore Vargheese’s opinion, Etisalat is building two new data centers in Jebel Ali and Al Ain to meet the growing demand for digital transformation in the UAE and is scheduled for delivery before the end of September this year.

Once complete, the Jebel Ali campus will be Etisalat’s biggest data center in the UAE. It will have an initial capacity of 12.4MW of IT power, while the Al Ain center will cover an area of 1,700 square meters, consisting of four rooms over two floors, with an IT power capacity of 4MW. Other prominent data center investors include Khazna, Amazon Web Services (AWS), Khazna, Gulf Data Hub, and Catamount.

“However, what is perhaps more telling were the results of a YouGov survey last year that discovered 88% of the UAE’s IT decision-makers had decided to increase their cloud spend in 2019,” said Vargheese.

“That ultimately means that these centres will need specialist cleaning and maintenance solutions,” he added.

Often, a data center can look perfectly clean when it might be contaminated with tiny particles that become airborne in the cooling system. Over time, these contaminants can damage circuit boards, corrode metals, and cause disks and tape drives to fail, subsequently resulting in an outage.

“In the past it was quite ironic that some companies would spend significant amounts of money, keeping IT equipment well maintained, consistently powered and in a cool environment, but relatively little to ensure a high degree of cleanliness and facility maintenance. Thankfully that attitude is changing rapidly, as organisations have come to realise the true cost of a serious outage, with significant downtime,” added Vargheese.

To view services, visit: https://hitchesglitches.com/special-cleaning/data-centre-cleaning