colocation
PLANNING FOR TOMORROW
Greg McCulloch of Aegis Data explains why future proofing your
colocation facility today will help address tomorrow’s challenges.
T
he growth and increasing
availability of colocation
facilities is driving an
organisational shift when
it comes to IT spend and
investment. The rise of cloud computing
coupled with growing data volumes and
the need for businesses to refresh their
existing legacy IT systems, now means
committing capex expenditure over a
significant lifetime is becoming more
difficult to justify within the boardroom.
In light of this, colocation providers
have been looking to capitalise by
offering increasingly flexible terms
under an opex model, with many
businesses keen to embrace this
across their IT estates. Evidence to
support this lies in recent research
carried out by the analyst firm 451
Research, which revealed that the
amount of data centre space occupied
by colocation providers is up by 11
per cent on 2014, and is forecast to
maintain that level of growth through
to 2018 as enterprises look to
outsource more of their IT. Ultimately,
this serves to quash any concerns that
the rise in cloud computing will bring
about the end of colocation facilities –
in fact, as evidence shows the impact
is quite the opposite.
For an organisation the benefits of
outsourcing IT capabilities mean the
initial capex hit associated with building
and managing a facility are taken away
– the third party provider has everything
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already in place and in doing so you can
effectively budget for usage based on
the agreed terms with the provider.
This removes the risk of fluctuation
within your financial forecasting
process, brought about by unexpected
IT changes or failings, allowing for
greater accuracy when budgeting and
defining long term expenditure.
As a result of this, organisations
are free to focus on their core
competencies and transition many
of their capex investments to opex
spending, freeing up cash for those
investments and other projects that
drive revenue and growth, across
the business.
Continual investment
In order to ensure colocation data
centres are able to continue capitalising
on the move towards an opex model,
it is imperative that actions are taken
to ensure continual investment is made
into the infrastructure, as well as future
proofing the facility. An example of
this can be seen with the growth in
high performance computing (HPC).
As highlighted organisations are
being forced to carry and process
unprecedented volumes of data
including, social mobile, analytics
and the aforementioned rise in cloud.
To accommodate this, data centre
providers are needing to support
denser configurations through
power and cooling requirements that
possess the ability to outstrip the
capabilities of traditional mechanical
and electrical infrastructures. But for
a lot of data centre sites, the reality of
achieving this is very difficult, largely
because their original designs were
completed at a time when modern
densities and configurations simply
did not exist. The result of this means
its ability to support technologies such
as HPC becomes very challenging.
So how does a facility address this
and what are the considerations?
Space is often seen as a major
consideration, especially when the
majority of facilities are located
in or around major cities, often
commanding a high premium per
square foot. Building on an existing
site is likely to represent a significant
capex expense and is typically
hindered by infrastructure boundaries.
For a lot of firms in this position an
often more viable option is building
an entirely new site in order to handle
HPC capabilities, but again this can
only be achieved through significant
investment. For those facilities facing
this reality it is imperative they are
able to understand where the current
and future demand for HPC data
centres is likely to come from and
then make changes accordingly.
Cooling capabilities
Another consideration focuses on
cooling capabilities. Data centre