Colocation data center enables users to lease a physical space to place multiple hardware equipment at a single location. Colocation and cloud computing are two such services that were introduced on very similar basis, which is to deliver purpose-built services or facility that is highly affordable. In spite of this, cloud is standing as one of the biggest challenges for colocation. This is happening mainly because cloud is setting new demands on data center managers and this had led to growing requirements from the customers.
But how is cloud changing the landscape for colocation data center?
Colocation facilities were built in order to eliminate the need for customers to invest in power and cooling, while allowing them space to locate their data centers. This all-in-one cost-effective facility was soon overtaken by cloud solutions as it now offers organizations all the resources required to run servers without the need to maintain their own facility.
As organizations started to migrate their workloads to the Cloud, the colocation sector for legacy customers grew smaller. This trend can be seen in the small and medium sized businesses where they are looking for new technology opportunities that can give a lift to their business and enable them to reap the benefits, which they consider to be probably a good idea over building their own data center.
Apart from this, there's been another big alteration pushed by the cloud, which is cloud technology shifted the entire focus from carrier neutrality in colocation to cloud neutrality. As organizations are migrating to the cloud, services providers are expecting them to want to utilize a range of cloud service provider. Thus, the new strategy for colocation providers here is to provide easy access to as many cloud instances as possible.
Many providers have been discussing about the need to implement multi-cloud strategies for data center customers for a long time now. But its full-fledged usage or actual deployment is still skeptical. Besides, multi-cloud appears to be a lose or win effort for colocation service providers.