Working from home, home schooling, online conferences – the corona pandemic has sparked enormous digital advancements both in the world of work and at home. How did IT centers master the new challenges? This was the subject of a study by Prof. Peter Radgen and Dirk Turek at the University of Stuttgart’s Institute of Energy Economics and Rational Energy Use. The study will be presented at an online event on June 11, 2021 and registration is now open.
Peter Radgen and Dirk Turek say of the study findings, “IT centers were well prepared for the challenges that arose as a result of the pandemic, they adapted their operations to suit capacity requirements and customers experienced little to no service disruption”. “Shortfalls were identified primarily in last-mile date transmission, but not in the IT centers themselves.”
According to the study, which was based on an online survey of 46 large companies and conducted from June to October 2020, 70 percent of IT centers recorded either considerable or extreme increases in network traffic during the survey period. Customer demand for online conferences (+70%) and video communication (+90%) saw a particularly strong increase. Further increases were seen in data storage, video streaming and telecommunications, as well as service demand. Cross-Connect – the direct connection of computers from different customers or networks – has also experienced an upturn. When asked about the future, more than three quarters of the respondents expect an increase, or even an extreme increase, in market growth, but they also expect to be confronted with longer delivery times for IT and infrastructure equipment.
Taking into consideration that the IT center sector is responsible for approximately 0.8 percent of the world’s power consumption, and 80 percent of the respondents classify one or all their IT centers as critical infrastructure, the study also focused on power supply. The corona pandemic had no effect on the power backup strategies for most IT center operators: just 10 percent of the respondents had increased the amount of fuel stored for emergency power supply systems, and only 15 percent had altered maintenance schedules for emergency power supply systems.
The study findings will be published as part of a webinar by the German Datacenter Association e.V. on Jun 11, 2021.
Registration .
Expert Contact:
Prof. Peter Radgen, Dirk Turek, University of Stuttgart, Institute of Energy Economics and Rational Energy Use (IER), Department of Energy Efficiency, tel. +49 711 685-87877, email
Original publication:
Dirk Turek, Peter Radgen: Effekte der Corona Pandemie auf die Rechenzentrumsbranche (summary), January 2021,