According to a new report by Honeywell, uptime, cybersecurity and sustainability top the list of priorities for data centre managers.

The Rethinking Data Centers as Resilient, Sustainable Facilities report surveyed data centre managers across the United States, China, Germany and Saudi Arabia.

It highlighted some key findings about the priorities of data centre facility managers – with respondents recognising the need for technologies that help optimise uptime and safety. According to the report, 91% of managers experienced at least one disruptive incident during the last 12 months, including downtime related to an outage (54%) or due to a cyber or physical breach (38%).

Energy efficiency of critical infrastructure was also singled out as a key concern of managers who responded. Over a third of those surveyed viewed improving energy efficiency as a crucial focus for the following 12 to 18 months, and more than half wanted to focus on reducing building energy use to achieve sustainability goals.

As part of the quest to be more sustainable, investing in smart building solutions also emerged as a focus area. A huge majority of 96% respondents identified remote management as being important to their facility, although only 34% actually had a system for this already in place. Managing all building systems through a single platform was the most important aspect of smart buildings for over half of those surveyed.

“Data centers have become one of the world’s most valuable resources. They enable e-commerce, cloud computing, remote work and help businesses across nearly every industry meet growing demands,” said Manish Sharma, Vice President and Chief Technology and Product Officer, Honeywell Building Technologies. “Investing in their efficiency, resilience and sustainability should be viewed not as a luxury but a strategic need.”

“It is crucial to reduce unscheduled downtime in data centres as much as possible,” added Sharma. “Giving data centre operators better insight and control of their building and OT systems – and treating them with the same importance of the critical IT systems – can help to better identify efficiencies, reduce potential outages and optimise security, fire and safety procedures.”

The full report can be read here.