...and why they matter
By Interxion
London remains the beating heart of Europe’s colocation market, representing 384MW - or around 44% - of total capacity. While factors like Brexit and the EU’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) don’t seem likely to threaten the capital’s dominance, some interesting changes are emerging in London’s data centre market. Here are the top three customer trends we’re seeing today.
Traditionally, firms approached colocation as a one-stop-shop, bundling all their necessary infrastructure into one facility - perhaps with a second back-up site elsewhere to protect business continuity. Today, we’re seeing this change as organisations take a more nuanced, multi-site approach to deployments based on the needs of specific applications.
Success now rests on harnessing the right infrastructure and connectivity in the right location to deliver exceptional end-user experiences, flexing with market demand and keeping costs under control. With central London’s close proximity to millions of consumers and thousands of businesses, as well as countless partners and connectivity providers, it’s becoming the hosting location of choice for business-critical and latency-sensitive applications.
From financial trading, where low latencies directly translate into competitive advantage and profitability, to content distributors that need to reach the broadest possible audience with seamless services, we’re seeing customers increasingly choose to colocate critical apps in the heart of the capital. Meanwhile, firms are keeping costs in check by hosting their remaining IT infrastructure, where latency isn’t a concern, on the outskirts of the capital.
Amid tightening regulation, it’s becoming clear that most companies can’t rely entirely on the public cloud. At Interxion we’re seeing a move to a hybrid IT approach: a strategy that combines the security and performance of on-premise infrastructure with the public cloud’s agility and cost-savings.
Increasingly, we’re seeing organisations that were born in the cloud building out their own private infrastructure and placing it in next to the access points to major public cloud platforms like Microsoft Azure, Amazon Web Services and IBM SoftLayer. In colocation data centres like ours in central London, businesses can create and manage private VLAN links to multiple clouds through a single, secure connection – giving them the best of both worlds without compromising on performance, costs, or compliance.
With Brexit creating uncertainty for businesses across the capital, our customers are also pursuing data centre strategies that open up more choices.
The independent nature of carrier neutral colocation means these facilities offer a ready-formed gathering of potential suppliers, partners and customers. With a broad mix of connectivity providers, cloud service providers and industry specific partners only a cross-connect away, businesses can make informed investments in private interconnections that maximise performance, reach and cost-efficiency.
All this means organisations have more options and greater access to new capabilities that can help differentiate them in a crowded marketplace. Firms exploiting the potential of colocation to underpin new partnerships may well have an edge over competitors when it comes to both growth and innovation in the post-Brexit world.
As digital transformation continues to redefine what’s possible, central London is the best place to explore the potential of skyrocketing data and connectivity. Download our free Info Paper to discover all the benefits of colocation in the heart of the capital: http://www.interxion.com/other/london-info-paper/