Colocation &
Outsourcing
Edgey
Steve Whatling, MD at Keysource, explains why the growing demand for edge data
centres led by Internet of Things, smart cities, and content distribution, presents a
number of challenges that data centre operators will need to be prepared for.
T
he data centre landscape
is fundamentally
changing. As businesses
and the public sector
continue to invest in
the possibilities of always-on
connectivity, the creation of a
fully-connected smart city is
no longer a pipedream. From
Barcelona – where public
transport, parking and street
lights are internet-enabled – to
Bristol, which has invested in
projects to monitor traffic and
32 | September 2017
the environment, real-world pilot
projects are gaining momentum.
This will result in a realignment
in the market towards edge
data centres, or fog compute,
in the coming years to support
this growing need for greater
connectivity and data availability.
This presents a huge opportunity
for professional data centre
operators but one that is not
without its challenges.
Whilst the decentralised data
centre model has been around in
various guises for some time, it fell
out of favour for a lot of businesses
as they sought to exploit the
efficiencies of operating fewer,
larger data centres. The emergence
of the IoT will undoubtedly lead to
a resurgence in its popularity. Only
edge networks can provide the
high connectivity and low latency
required by the IoT and meet
customers growing expectation for
instant content and services.
Whilst the data centre has
often been seen as an afterthought