DATA CENTRES
Now , things are very different . “ We ' re seeing large hyperscale campuses located maybe 40-60km outside the network core being used for data warehousing , and then smaller edge locations close to the end user . It ' s a fundamental evolution in the way that data centres are architected and scaled . People are now looking for a mixture of large hyperscale campuses , edge transit campuses , colocation edge locations , and even microedge facilities which people are looking to use to lower their latencies as much as possible ,” Davidson said .
With this bifurcation of the industry towards one of two extremes ( Davidson told me that Digital Realty is already repurposing an older carrier hotel it owns in Hong Kong into a facility better suited to operating at the edge of the network ) is the middle-ground “ just-a-data-centre ” that Davidson recalled set to disappear ?
Ian Cottingham , Wholesale Specialist Director at BT Wholesale , still thinks the death of colocation is being greatly exaggerated , however . “ Colocation still has a role to play in the data centre sector because it offers high-availability and a cost-effective alternative to on-premises data centres ,” he stressed . As business requirements increase the demand for data-heavy applications , colocation services can ensure that highbandwidth connectivity is always available from highly secure locations with redundant power suppliers which are close to where it ’ s actually needed .
“ Otherwise , it ’ s akin to continuously shuttling a delivery van between a central warehouse and various , wide-spread locations for each delivery ,” Cottingham said . “ It ’ ll take a long time and it ’ s expensive . If there are various decentralised warehouses closer to customers for the van to pick up stock , the whole process will be more
“ Despite the shift for some operators away from colocation , they will remain a reliable middle-ground ”
IAN COTTINGHAM SALES DIRECTOR , BT WHOLESALE
efficient . That ’ s why , despite the shift for some operators away from colocation , they will remain a reliable middle-ground between on-premises data centres and cloudbased offerings .” Whether or not colocation data centres will be ( or have already been ) absorbed into the edge either remains to be seen , or is perhaps just a matter of semantics .
48 February 2022