Research & data studies
Original, cited reference reports on the infrastructure UK organisations actually buy — every figure sourced and dated. Free to read, free to cite.
AI Servers: The 2026 Data Study
A cited, UK-focused reference on AI/GPU servers — architecture, GPU specs (H100/H200/B200/MI300X), the vendor landscape, power & cooling, cloud-vs-own economics and the market backdrop.
UK SME Cyber Attacks 2026: The Real Frequency & Cost
UK SME cyber attack data for 2026: 43% of UK firms breached, phishing dominant, £6,400 average SME breach cost. Segment-by-segment figures inside.
RTO/RPO Reality Index 2026: Stated vs Actually Achieved
UK RTO/RPO benchmark 2026: real DR drill data shows recovery in 73–121 seconds vs vague policy targets. See the gap — and how to close it.
Lease vs Buy Servers 2026: The CapEx-OpEx Maths Reworked
UK data study: lease vs buy servers 2026. Real TCO figures, utilisation thresholds and UK tax rules for the CapEx-vs-OpEx call in a price surge.
ITAD Value Recovery 2026: What Retired IT Is Really Worth
2026 data study: international benchmarks relevant to the UK market for ITAD value recovery by asset age, resale vs sanitisation cost, WEEE duties, and a mark
Phishing-Resistant MFA 2026: Passkeys vs OTP Data Study
UK data study: passkey and FIDO2 adoption figures for 2026, Microsoft's Entra ID deadline, and why OTP/push MFA is being retired.
Backup Window 2026: The Data Growth vs Throughput Gap
2026 data study: enterprise data growth vs backup throughput. UK figures on the shrinking backup window and how to close it.
AI Networking Index 2026: 800G Goes Mainstream
800G data centre networking 2026 tracked with verified adoption, cost-per-port and Ethernet vs InfiniBand data for UK buyers planning AI cluster upgrades.
Cold Storage £/TB 2026: Tape vs HDD vs Object Cost
Mid-2026 £/TB data for tape, HDD and cloud archive tiers — full TCO, hidden fees and UK G-Cloud pricing for 10-year retention decisions.
CVE Exploitation Speed Index 2026: The Patch-Gap Race
2026 data study: mean time to exploit a CVE has hit -7 days. UK-focused figures on the patch gap, AI impact and how to prioritise remediation.
IT Hardware Financing 2026: Monthly Cost of the Price Surge
UK data study: 2026 hardware price rises of 15-30% meet elevated financing costs. Worked monthly-cost examples for servers, laptops and leasing.
Server End of Service Life 2026: The UK EOSL Dataset
UK data study: exact Windows Server EOSL dates for 2026-27, what mainstream vs extended support really means, and how to sequence your server refresh.
OEM Support Price-Hike Tracker 2026: UK Cost Data
2026 OEM support renewal price hikes tracked by vendor, with UK figures, a worked TPM comparison, hidden costs and a renew-or-switch framework.
AI Inference Energy Cost 2026: Pounds per Million Tokens
Mid-2026 UK data study: GPU wattage, UK electricity benchmarks and real £/$ per-million-token pricing — a working formula for AI inference cost.
DRaaS Price 2026 UK: Benchmarking Cost, RTO and Failover
UK DRaaS pricing benchmarked for 2026: per-VM rates, sovereign list prices and RTO/RPO tiers compared, so buyers match spend to workload risk.
Largest SSD 2026: Enterprise Capacity Index Past 122TB
Enterprise SSD capacity data for 2026: 122TB-class drives, 245TB-class drives (shipping and announced), EB-scale shipment growth, UK pricing reality, and a bu
LLM VRAM Requirements 2026: The Open-Model GPU Index
Exact 2026 VRAM and GPU-tier figures for Llama 4, DeepSeek V4, Kimi K2.5 and Qwen 3 32B — weights, KV cache and quantisation tiers for UK IT buyers.
Network Switch Prices 2026: The UK Procurement Tracker
Verified 2026 data on Cisco price increases, switch lead times and firewall costs — plus a UK procurement playbook for network refreshes.
UK Cyber Insurance Premium Index 2026: Costs & Controls
2026 UK cyber insurance data: premium bands by turnover, broker rate trends, required controls, and the £25,000 Cyber Essentials cover bundle explained.
All-Flash vs Hybrid TCO 2026: The 60–80% Power Argument
2026 data study: all-flash costs 5–7x more than HDD TCO, yet cuts power per TB by 60–80% in AI workloads. Where flash wins, where hybrid still rules.
Data Centre Liquid Cooling 2026: The kW Where Air Dies
UK data centre liquid cooling 2026: the exact kW thresholds where air fails, direct-to-chip vs immersion bands, and what GB200-class racks mean for retrofits.
Immutable Backup Adoption 2026: UK Data Study
2026 data study: UK immutable & air-gapped backup adoption rates, the insurance-driven mandate, and the recovery-time gap IT buyers must close.
End of Support Attack Surface 2026: The Unpatched Wave
Windows 10's consumer security bridge closes 13 Oct 2026. A data-led 2026 risk study for UK IT leaders on ESU deadlines, compliance and cost decisions.
Xeon 6 vs EPYC Turin 2026: Cores, Watts & UK Pricing
Xeon 6 vs EPYC Turin 2026 compared with verified core counts, AMD/Intel benchmark claims, a UK pricing snapshot and TCO factors for server buyers.
Cloud Repatriation 2026: The UK Sovereign AI Data Study
UK data study: 87% of firms plan cloud repatriation, 93% move AI data UK-only, and the TCO math behind sovereign AI and hybrid infrastructure decisions.
Third-Party Maintenance Savings 2026: A UK Data Audit
Our 2026 audit of third-party maintenance savings claims for UK IT buyers: what's verified, what isn't, and how to build a defensible TCO case instead.
Nvidia Rubin GPU Specs 2026: The UK Buyer's Roadmap Tracker
Nvidia's Rubin roadmap decoded: specs vs Blackwell Ultra, power/cooling impact for UK data centres, and when procurement teams should actually buy.
Largest Hard Drive 2026: HDD Roadmap Tracker (UK)
WD's 40TB HDD nears volume production as Seagate ships 44TB-class drives to hyperscalers. Full 2026 HAMR/ePMR/MAMR roadmap for UK buyers.
Backup £/TB Tracker 2026: The Storage-Crisis Knock-On
UK backup £/TB data study: G-Cloud rates, hyperscaler tiers, and specialist pricing compared for 2026, with worked TCO examples and a buyer checklist.
Server Lead Times 2026: The UK Delivery-Time Tracker
UK data study: new server lead times hit 30–52 weeks, AI GPU systems 40–70+ weeks, DRAM 40+ weeks — with Q1 2026 price and delay figures for buyers.
UK Data Breach Cost 2026: The Real Pound Figure
UK data breach cost 2026: £3.29m average, £5.74m in financial services, and why DSIT's £0 median masks the real board-level exposure.
On-Prem AI Inference Break-Even 2026: Own vs Rent UK
UK data study: on-prem AI inference costs £75k–£90k/yr vs £200k–£240k cloud for an 8-GPU A100 node. Where the break-even utilisation line falls in 2026.
Server Refresh 2026 TCO: Refresh, Defer or Extend?
UK data study: 2026 server refresh TCO modelled against deferral and TPM extension, using IDC, Servnet and circular-economy refresh research.
GPU Rack Power Density 2026: 700W Chips to 600kW Racks
2026 data: GPU TDPs to 1400W, AI racks at 80-120kW, GB200 NVL72 at 120kW. The UK buyer's power-density chart, worked example and retrofit costs.
Windows Server 2016 EOL: The January 2027 Migration Dataset
Windows Server 2016 support ends 12 Jan 2027. UK data on ESU pricing, installed base and migration timelines for IT teams planning now.
2026 Nearline HDD Shortage: AI Reprices UK Cold Storage
A critical study for UK businesses on the 2026 nearline HDD shortage. Discover AI's impact on storage prices, lead times, and actionable strategies for procur
Refurbished Server Price Index 2026: The Secondary Surge
UK data study: refurbished server prices in 2026 vs new hardware, DRAM/NAND cost surges, lead times, and where refurb wins on £/core and £/TB.
2026 Storage Price Index: What the Crisis Did to Arrays
UK data study: NAND, SSD and HDD price moves in 2026, tracked against SAN spend. See the numbers behind the storage cost shock and what to do next.
SSD vs HDD Cost Per TB 2026: The 22.6x Capacity Gap
Verified Q1–Q2 2026 data: 30TB enterprise SSDs cost 22.6x more per TB than HDDs. UK-specific TCO, power and market analysis for storage buyers.
UK GPU Rental Price Index 2026: H100 to B200 Hourly
Verified mid-2026 data: H100, H200 and B200 rental rates from $0.36 to $14.90/hr. See the true cost gap and what it means for UK AI buyers.
Windows 10 EOL 2026: The Billion-PC Refresh, By The Numbers
Windows 10 EOL 2026 data study: ESU deadlines to 2027/2028, real commercial pricing, Windows 11's billion-device flip, and the UK refurb-PC surge.
DDR5 Server Memory Price 2026: The 90% Quarter Tracked
DDR5 server memory price 2026 tracked by quarter: Q1's 93-98% RDIMM contract spike, UK kit prices up 344%, and what Q3-Q4 forecasts mean for budgets.
Ransomware Recovery Cost Index 2026: Downtime in Pounds
Ransomware recovery cost 2026 in pounds: what UK mid-market firms pay per incident by size, typical downtime days, and how immutable backups cut the bill.
Server Prices 2026: How Memory Repriced the Rack
Tracking 2-socket server prices through the 2026 memory shock: DDR5 up 90-95% in Q1, Dell list +17%, and a UK-indexed 512GB reference build.
2026 AI Server Cost Index: The HBM Tax on GPU Boxes
AI server cost 2026, decoded: a GBP teardown of an 8xH200 GPU box shows the HBM and DRAM memory tax now driving most of the bill. Cited figures.
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