The Evolution of Colocation and Its Impact on the Future

In the business sphere of today, colocation data centres have become crucial for the daily activities within every industry while deepening in complexity too. This complexity is partly due to the rise of nuanced business needs that require specialized  services. Prospects are promising for data centre providers as the annual revenue for their global market continues along its upward trajectory.

The popularity of cloud computing highly facilitates the colocation market. A rapidly increasing number of companies transfer their networks and communications infrastructure to third parties due to massive amounts of data with the help of experienced consultants like Walt Coulston. This change means that they must look for facilities that are dedicated to handling such services so they can focus on key business objectives. 

Colocation has been evolving beyond providing only physical space for their clients to fill a strategic partnership role that assists enterprises in achieving their infrastructural needs. 

Evolution of Colocation

The digital age has brought along with it higher customer expectations from the organisations they patronise. This means companies must offer rapid and seamless access to high-quality content and real-time data to and from various devices. Though hyperscalers have taken over a huge part of the changing market landscape, colocation facilities still have a vital role. 

While cloud storage seems to herald an end to colocation, this is not the case. Currently, the colocation industry is thriving despite increased adoption of the public cloud. Of course, both data handling services have their pros, CIOs are likely to choose a combination of both.  

Hyperscale providers may have their real estate, but the expansion they required was made possible by leveraging colocation services. This fact puts into perspective the contribution of data centres and their value in a digital economy. Providers have begun to offer public cloud-like services to companies that seek hybrid infrastructure as they embark on their digital transformation journey.

Companies also want colocation providers that give a hub-like experience using a properly designed data centre that has low water usage effectiveness (WUE) and power usage effectiveness (PUE). At the same time, they must provide a high price/performance ratio to large server farms. PUE and WUE are important ratings for organisations that are sustainability conscious. 

Benefits of Colocation

What has really contributed to the shift towards colocation is the capacity to scale up and down the data centre tiers on a needs basis. Enterprise management understands that they can get significant savings on upfront investments with this approach. Businesses can then channel this capital into the next bright idea that can further their growth.

Connected devices have remarkably increased, and data generation continuously magnifies. A colocation facility helps to mitigate the possibly overwhelming barrage of information by taking on the role of data processing powerhouses that aggregate customer data. They are also able to redirect traffic via load balancers to under utilized servers, keeping bandwidths efficient. 

The Data Centre Facility of the Future

Colocation providers have built relationships with growing businesses that need data hosting. As the number of providers continues to rise, there are trends that one must keep up on:

• The Need for Unique Colocation Benefits

At the end of 2017, the four largest data centre providers accounted for about 38% of the estimated industry revenue. This showed that competition between providers who offer unique advantages would attract consumers. As this service spreads into a new market, internal and external data centre infrastructure management (DCIM) software looks to be a major component of future colocation services.

• The Changing Face of the Data Centre Provider

As innovation pushes technology forward, collocations will include fresh components in their setup. The need for global infrastructure, including support and maximum capacity means that lower latency is expected at the lowest possible cost. 

The rapid growth in demand for colocation services is likely to slow down gradually in the coming years as the cloud captures its market share. However, it would not change substantially since many firms choose colocation as an alternative to having their centres because of the higher reliability and security they offer. 

An essential factor behind the explosion of the “mega data centre” ( a buzzword that describes massive projects created in response to high demand for colocation server space). Monitoring the progress of these projects is interesting as they attract high profile clients such as eBay. With time we will be able to see how much the cloud impacts their lifespan.

Hybrid facilities are what seem to be the future, which is good news for small and medium enterprises (SMEs) which find using just colocation impractical. Firms must be prepared for crests and troughs in demand as it is usually not cost-effective to invest in scaling to peak capacity using colocation. SMEs can choose a mix of both approaches instead. Colocating could be used when dealing with daily business activities, while public cloud services can be used for intensive tasks.