Technology analyst firm Omdia has ranked Vertiv as one of the leading suppliers in the prefabricated modular (PFM) data centre market in a newly released research that highlights how benefits such as the ability to scale with confidence are driving significant growth in the adoption of PFM solutions in all geographies.
A global provider of critical digital infrastructure and continuity solutions, Vertiv has the second highest market share in the PFM data centre market worldwide. “In Asia, we have seen strong demand for PFM data centres due to the speed of installation and the overall benefits gained in terms of efficiency and cost reduction. In fact, in our PFM data centre factory in Thailand, we are able to quickly construct and customize modular data centres and ship to our customers across the region,” said Steve Shelley, vice president for integrated modular solutions at Vertiv in Asia.
The research conducted by Omdia reveals that the global market for prefabricated modular data centres, from the edge to the core, increased by more than 65%. The analyst group attributed this strong growth to a number of factors – including scalability, the benefits of offsite manufacturing and integration, and speed of deployment.
Published in early 2020 and based on 2018 and 2019 data, the Omdia report "Prefabricated Modular Data Centres" defined a number of different forms of PFM data centres with varying use cases, including IT and facility-specific designs and so-called all-in-one modules (with integrated IT, power, and cooling infrastructure) which are commonly used in education, industrial, and healthcare applications as well as in remote and harsh environments.
According to Omdia, demand for edge computing is driving uptake of all-in-one modules for edge locations that need a small data centre presence close to end users. The ‘plug and play’ approach has the benefit of not only cutting the time for start-up and commissioning to just a few days instead of weeks, or months, but also reducing the potential for quality issues, as components are pre-integrated and pre-tested off-site.
As described in the report, Vertiv’s PFM designs cover a range of different offerings to meet specific customer needs, such as the Vertiv SmartAisle – a fully self-contained, easily-configurable and ready-to-order PFM product range that enables new data centre whitespace to be rapidly deployed. Vertiv also provides completely custom PFM solutions, which include design, project management and system integration.