Data centre as-a-service gains momentum

The global market for data-center/it-spending-will-jump-more-than-expected-in-2021-surpassing-4t-gartner" target="_blank" rel="noopener">data center systems will reach $237 billion by 2021, representing an increase of more than 7% year over year, according to Gartner’s latest IT spending forecast. And the world’s market-leading companies in servers, storage, and hyper-converged infrastructure are fundamentally changing their sales movement to enable enterprises to buy data center products in a new way: as a service, on a consumption-based, pay-as-you-go basis. Arguably the biggest data center trend in 2021. The world’s leading data center infrastructure providers, such as Hewlett Packard Enterprise and Dell Technologies, are doubling down on this movement.

Data Center as a Service (DCaaS) is a hosting service in which the infrastructure and physical facilities of the data center are provided to customers over a long-distance network (WAN). By outsourcing to a service provider, companies can solve logistical and budgetary problems related to their data centers. Many companies rely on DCaaS to remedy the physical limitations of their on-premises infrastructure or to alleviate the hosting and management of non-core applications.

The Data Center as a Service market size is expected to reach $327.8 billion by 2025, with an estimated growth of 15.8% during 2020-2025. Increasing the use of portable data storage devices to retrieve data irrespective of time and location is driving the market growth. In addition, the increasing demand for colocation facilities and enterprise data storage is driving this growth, as is the adoption of service models such as IaaS, SaaS, and PaaS.

DCaaS is the future of Collocation

A DCaaS provider is typically hired by a company that can no longer expand its own data center. This may be due to lack of power, cooling, rack space, capital, bandwidth, experienced IT staff, or other factors. DCaaS can also provide data management tools for security and incident management as well as server utilization and optimization.

One of the biggest differences between DCaaS and Colocation is the flexibility of the Data-Center-as-a-Service model, enabling the deployment of various cloud solutions that allow companies to focus on the development and innovations that drive their business.

Some of the biggest advantages with DCaaS providers involve availability and business continuity. That’s because a Data Center-as-a-Service (DCaaS) offers:

• Guaranteed agility, robustness, scalable capacity and guaranteed performance.
• Predictable IT operations costs.
• Infrastructure based on metrics and process management.
• Ease of transformation of data centers from cost centers to strategic assets.
• Lower IT operating costs as a result of the flexible payment model, based on usage only.
• Support and services from certified crisis management specialists.
• Improved SLAs through standardized IT infrastructure architecture and support processes.
• Assured security and protection compliance appropriate to your data center location and jurisdictions.
• Low environmental impact, energy efficient and heat density cooling.

The nature of how these technologies operate changes the response to downtime for maintenance or unscheduled outages. If an outage occurs, the natural protections built into the technologies allow those workloads to continue running, which means you are less reliant on any one technology or system.

Unexpected downtime can result in serious reputational and performance damage. This is where DCaaS providers’ unrivaled uptime guarantee comes into play. With multi-cloud DCaaS the consolidation of redundancies and backups delivers consistent uptime, so customers are never out of reach.

Besides providing superior uptime and flexibility, the data centers are equipped with modern software and hardware that provide high-level security for their customers.

When a company settles with a data center, it gets much more than access to equipment; it is entering a network environment designed to ensure the highest level of cyber protection on both physical and digital levels. With all the cutting-edge security features provided by DCaaS, data centers can be considered the modern fortresses of the digital age.

Attention points

Despite all the advantages, opting for the model should consider that WAN outages for organizations using a DCaaS can sometimes leave applications unavailable. So organizations opting for the model should think about the implications of unexpected downtime on their business. And describe in the service level agreement what will happen during an outage.

In addition, they should also promote their own network monitoring. Establishing or adopting a robust network activity monitoring method is essential to ensure the success of your business and the security of your organization’s information. This requires solutions that can automatically detect and respond to threats and performance issues in real-time, as well as predict potential problems in the future.

DCaaS providers must also be committed to maintaining the highest levels of security for their customers. When a business enters into a relationship with a data center, it is not just about gaining access to equipment; it is also entering a network environment designed to ensure maximum security on both the physical and digital fronts.

Another factor to consider when choosing DCaaS is the state of the provider’s organization. Like any other technology-based business, DCaaS providers are subject to the same pressures and challenges as the rest of the IT world. They may merge with other companies, face staffing issues or even go out of business, leaving customers to recover and restore affected applications on their own.