Data center operators maintained a steady spending level on infrastructure during quarter two of 2015, though many are trending towards colocation services or cloud service providers, instead of building new data centers, according to a new report from 451 Research.

The market tracker said that 87 percent of data center operators it surveyed in Europe and North America either held the line or increased spending during quarter two. We could see an upsurge in spending soon however, as 25 percent of data center operators told 451 Research they’re planning to step up retrofits in the next 90 days.

Of those who did increase spending in the last quarter, most of these were medium-sized and large financial and healthcare organizations, which reported buying new IT infrastructure such as racks, cabling, power equipment and management software.

“To support growing business demands on IT, enterprises are freeing up budgets and investing in modernizing neglected datacenter facilities,” wrote Dan Harrington of 451 Research in a press release. “Those equipment vendors with offerings that target enterprise clients’ larger premium sites will see the greatest opportunity.”

451 Research says it’s more or less standard for organizations to reevaluate their data center needs when they reach 75 percent capacity utilization. But for those who hit that target, most would rather opt for a cloud provider or colocation than build an entirely new facility. That trend led to 8 percent growth in the colocation market on square footage basis, the analysts said.

In the coming months, “as enterprises require additional capacity and increasingly need to be more agile in responding to growing business demands” we can expect growth in both colocation and cloud service providers, Harrington said.

Amazon Web Services, Microsoft, Salesforce.com, Inc., Rackspace Inc. and Google were the top cloud service providers during the second quarter, 451 Research found. Meanwhile, Equinix Inc., AT&T Inc., Sungard Financial Systems, CenturyLink Inc. and Digital Realty Trust were the top ranked colocation providers.

Spending on data centers wasn’t just limited to racks, cabling, power equipment and management software. Air handling equipment and power distribution also accounted for a considerable spend. 451 Research said that Schneider Electric SE was the top vendor for uninterruptable power supplies, power distribution units, management software, as well as racks and cabling, while Emerson Network Power Co. was the top data center vendor for cooling and air handling equipment.

The report also noted the growing trend towards using data center management software, as operators look to squeeze more efficiency from their facilities. 451 Research said the consolidation of local datacenters and server rooms in favor of colocation services and the shift from on-premise to hybrid cloud infrastructure were the main two factors driving this trend.

“Over the next two years, most organizations expect to close many of their smaller local datacenters and server rooms, indicating a continued trend toward fewer overall datacenter sites,” the analyst firm said.

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