Resurrecting Resilience: The Modular Alternative

Resilience is the word on everyone’s mind. For data centre leaders, the risk of outdated, inflexible infrastructure holding back performance is always on the agenda. Ageing systems drain efficiency, limit scalability and increase the risk of costly downtime. The solution? Bringing resilience back to life through modular design.

Downtime is no longer measured in inconvenience; it’s measured in lost revenue, lost trust and lost ground. Gartner puts the average cost at $5,600 per minute, while Ponemon Institute estimates outages at large facilities can exceed $9,000 per minute. Yet, downtime isn’t the only hidden cost:

• Overbuilding: Traditional builds often force upfront investment in capacity that may not be needed for years.
• Deployment delays: Build projects with lengthy construction times risk falling behind fast-changing AI-driven demand.
• Budgets are exceeded: McKinsey found that delayed infrastructure projects exceed budgets by 20-30% on average.

For IT and Operations Managers, resilience isn’t a nice-to-have; it’s a critical shield against rising operational and financial risk.

The industry shift is clear. Uptime Institute reports that 60% of operators plan to deploy some form of modular or prefabricated design in the next three years. The reasons are compelling:

• Speed: Deployment times cut by up to 60% (Uptime Institute).
• Scalability: Capacity added in stages to match real demand, avoiding wasted costs.
• Reliability: Factory-tested modules reduce onsite errors, rework and disruption.
• Efficiency: Prefabricated systems integrate advanced cooling and power architectures to reduce energy waste.

This combination gives operation leaders the agility to adapt while maintaining confidence in uptime and performance.

At Durata, resilience is engineered into every project. By uniting mechanical, electrical and fabrication services under one roof, we take complexity out of delivery. We deliver this resilience through modularity that’s backed by:

• 80,000 sq. ft of in-house fabrication, giving us full control over accuracy, repeatability and quality.
• Vendor-flexible, high-density modular builds through our AI:20 factory, engineered for today’s demanding AI and cloud workloads.
• Strategic global locations from Teesside Freeport to Atlanta, enabling rapid deployment anywhere in the world.
• An experienced Projects Delivery Team that manages every stage, from survey and design to commissioning, ensuring one accountable partner throughout.

For clients, this means infrastructure that adapts to demand, delivers on time and performs where it matters most.

When planning future capacity, three questions can help benchmark resilience strategies for your business operations:

1. How fast can we bring new capacity online?
2. Are we scaling in line with demand?
3. Do we have confidence in the consistency of delivery across sites and vendors?

If the answer isn’t clear, modular may not just be an alternative; it may be the only path to sustainable resilience.

Legacy builds aren’t designed for today’s pace of change. AI workloads alone are projected to drive a 33% annual rise in demand for AI-ready capacity through 2030 (McKinsey). That scale of growth can’t be met with slow, traditional models. Modular is the practical solution: scalable, reliable and built for the next decade of digital infrastructure. At Durata, we’re focused on helping organisations restore resilience where it matters most, in the systems powering the world’s digital future.