Co-location evolving from supplying rack space to providing services
Organisations are increasingly relying on cloud-based enterprise IT solutions. As a result, data centres are increasingly becoming the engine that drives an organisation’s business operations, with implications for the range of services they offer. Although the market for co-location has changed very little over the years, it seems that changes are afoot. Companies are looking for greater flexibility, less IT equipment under own management, fewer long-term contracts and an increase in additional services related to security and reliability. Data centres that continue to focus on co-location only have no chance of survival in the long term.
Several developments are behind these changing demands on co-location services. One such development is the recently revoked Safe Harbour Act, as a result of which the exchange of personal data with American data centres is no longer regarded as being safe. Privacy issues such as this are increasingly relevant in a world in which so much personal data is stored in the cloud. It places ever stricter legal requirements on the geographical location of data, as well as on technical security and availability. As the owner of the data â the customer â is responsible for complying with these rules, this is something that is more frequently included as a key demand when the customer selects his data centre provider.
Nowadays, providing co-location only is not enough. When purchasing co-location services, these types of things are quite straightforward to arrange, but much of the responsibility still remains with the customer. In order to remain competitive, data centre providers will have to adapt their data centre services accordingly. Co-location is evolving from simply supplying rack space to providing a service that includes advice and managed security, along with certifications for specific market segments.
Optimum uptime
Another element in the expansion of co-location services is to guarantee maximum availability of IT services in the data centre. This means that single co-location is not really an option. This has led to a trend towards hybrid environments and an increase in the popularity of twin data centre infrastructures that provide a flexible manner of redundancy. Another challenge relating to uptime is connectivity, both from the customer to the data centre and from the data centre to the international internet exchanges. It is important in both cases to offer redundancy.
Eric Vredeveldt, CEO of Previder, a Dutch data centre provider, explains: “The data centres owned by Previder are located on the border with Germany, equidistant to the AMS-IX and DE-CIX exchanges, and we offer our customers direct, dedicated access to both. This has become an increasingly important requirement, certainly for large multinationals, in order to guarantee the uptime of their services.”
Advanced data protection
Yet another growing demand in terms of co-location concerns services such as managed security, DDoS protection and certifications for government bodies, healthcare and the financial sector. This goes much further than traditional co-location and requires data centres to provide their customers with proactive advice and support in protecting their business data.
Jeroen Renard, Security Officer at Previder tells us: “Extensive security services for customers, including market-specific ISO certifications, are not yet customary in co-location. However, in recent years this has become more and more of a requirement for a growing segment of customers. I expect that data centres that continue to provide co-location only will have no chance of survival in the years ahead.”
Previder will be attending the Cloud Expo Europe in Frankfurt on 10 and 11 November 2015. The organisation looks forward to sharing its vision on the future of cloud with an international audience of cloud service providers and their customers.
