“ There are still a number of tier three markets in Asia that haven ' t really opened up yet but will probably start to do so over the next few years ”
Partnering for Success
DIGITAL REALTY
“ It ' s requiring people to think very differently about the data centre market , as well as how facilities are going to be interconnected into the greater fabric of a given market .”
This bifurcation of the data centre industry into centralised hyperscale and a rapidly expanding edge has radically changed the ways in which data centres approach interconnection . Davidson – an 18 year veteran of CenturyLink – explains that around a decade ago , he started to witness the beginnings of this fundamental change . “ Some of the most profitable routes that we had in Asia from a connectivity standpoint – where we were seeing the highest yields – were those express routes linking data centre to data centre ,” he recalls . This was a far cry from the many-to-many
“ There are still a number of tier three markets in Asia that haven ' t really opened up yet but will probably start to do so over the next few years ”
ROBERT DAVIDSON DIRECTOR OF NETWORK SERVICES APAC , DIGITAL REALITY
interconnection which had been the norm for the preceding decades .
“ Over the last five to seven years , there ' s been a dynamic shift where network connectivity – largely driven by hyperscale densities – has shifted towards the centralised data centre ,” he says .
Partnering for Success
Power , cooling , and intelligent , efficient design are all vital parts of a data centre . However , an industry-leading PUE and hyperdense server racks mean nothing without rich interconnection with the surrounding network .
As it executes a sweeping rollout across APAC , Digital Realty is increasingly turning to interconnection specialist Ciena in order to deliver their ubiquitous , world-class customer experience , no matter the challenges posed by local interconnection infrastructure . and I ' ve always maintained that they ' re the best partner in the space from a total cost of ownership perspective ,” says Davidson . “ Ciena ' s products give you the uptime , they give you the availability ; everything just works . That ' s very valuable , especially in a market like Asia where you can ' t always rely on the level of the skill of the technician you ' re going to get .”
“ We work very closely with Ciena to ensure that , while the approach might need to vary from market to market , at the end of the day our customers aren ' t stuck in our data centres . I ' ve worked extensively with Ciena for the past 20 years . They were the main provider when I was at Qwest and CenturyLink , datacentremagazine . com 67