In a statement, the market research organisation said that traditionally, the premise behind data centre design was to work out what capacity was required, predict growth for the coming 15 to 20 years and then build the resource to suit the need.
Gartner said that newly-created data centres are often opened with large areas of floor space that are catered for by uninterruptible power supply systems and are also "mostly empty".
"However, costs are actually lower if enterprises adopt a pod-based approach to data centre construction and expansion," the organisation stated, noting that sites should be built to support future growth, but only what is needed should be created initially.
"Cutting operating expenses, which are a nontrivial part of the overall IT spend for most clients, frees up money," it concluded.
Earlier this month, Gartner stated that shared service models could help lower expenditure in the field of enterprise content management.
