industry news
Server rooms
ill-equipped to
keep pace with
technological
innovations, says
The Green Grid
Infrastructure-as-a-Service:
European data centres’ migration to the
cloud fuels new investments
The increasing maturity and customer awareness of cloud services in Europe is
impelling a phased migration from premise based data centres to a cloud environment.
With this shift, public cloud providers such as AWS and Google have identified a large
market for Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS) solutions.
The convergence of cloud services with emerging applications like Big Data
and Internet of Things (IoT) creates more opportunities for growth, encouraging
innovations in infrastructure and platforms.
European Infrastructure-as-a-Service Market, Forecast to 2021, the new analysis from
Frost & Sullivan’s IT Services & Applications Growth Partnership Service programme,
analyses the emerging trends, competitive factors and provider strategies in the
European IaaS market. Western Europe, specifically Germany, the UK and Benelux, leads
the market; in due course, Eastern Europe also will emerge an influential region.
As the pace of migration of each enterprise depends on its size, type and regional
presence, IaaS providers are recognising that a one-size-fits-all solution is not
ideal. They are, therefore, developing nuances within their portfolios to meet each
customer’s unique requirements.
‘The varying cloud readiness of enterprises has fostered a market for hybrid IT, and
service providers are tailoring their portfolios to meet this enterprise requirement,’ said
digital transformation research analyst Shuba Ramkumar. ‘Astutely, they are seeking
to cement long term customer relations in this emerging market by offering managed,
consulting and professional services to guide customers through the transition period.’
Click here for complimentary access to more information on this analysis and
to register for a Growth Strategy Dialogue, a free interactive briefing with Frost &
Sullivan’s thought leaders.
Enterprise server rooms will be
unable to meet the compute power
and IT energy efficiencies required
to meet the demands of fluctuating
technology trends, pushing a higher
uptake in hyperscale cloud and
colocation facilities. Citing the latest
IDC research, which predicts a growing
fall in the number of server rooms
globally, Roel Castelein, customer
services director at The Green Grid,
argues that legacy server rooms are
failing to keep pace with new workload
types and causing organisations to
seek alternative solutions.
‘It wasn’t too long ago that the
main data exchanges going through a
server room were email and file storing
processes, where 2-5KW racks was
often sufficient. But as technology
has grown, so have the pressures
and demands placed on the data
centre. Now, we’re seeing data centres
equipped with 10-12KW racks to better
cater for modern day requirements,
with legacy data centres falling further
behind,’ said Roel.
‘IoT, social media and the number
of personal devices now accessing
data are just a handful of factors that
are pushing the demands of compute
power and energy consumption,
which is causing further pressures
on legacy server rooms used within
the enterprise. As a result, more
organisations are now shifting to
cloud based services, dominated by
the likes of Google and Microsoft, and
also colo facilities. This trend is not
only reducing carbon footprints, but
also guarantees that the environment
organisations are buying into are both
energy efficient and equipped for
higher server processing.’
April 2017 | 7