Almost a third of north west businesses (32.9%) are hosting the majority or all of their systems in a third party data centre, up 9% on last year, according to an independent survey carried out by Zen.
They also said that flexibility, lower costs and a pay-as-you-go payment models are pushing them to adopt cloud-based and virtual data centres rather than splash out on their own.
Managed Hosting is the most used outsourced hosting service, with 40% of the respondents who used a hosting service relying on it. The numbers using cloud-based Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) and dedicated infrastructure services are growing too, though, at 20% for each.
"It's easy to see where businesses are headed - into the cloud, where remote applications will help them operate more efficiently and take advantage of cost-savings and new applications," said Richard Tang, Managing Director.
Cloud platforms and data centres also depend on reliable connectivity, whether hosting applications in-house, in a colocation facility or using public/private cloud services. The survey showed that reliable data centre connectivity was vital to 94.6% of respondents, with 79% choosing speed as also important.
Businesses also need robust backup and disaster recovery systems and the kind of service and support that they can count on, 60% stated that the level of support was their most important criteria.
74% of respondents considered security vital when choosing a data centre. "Security is essential, both network security to protect the servers and infrastructure, and physical security to control who can access equipment and when," added Tang.