EDITOR ’ S QUESTION
NOEL O ’ GRADY , DIRECTOR , IRELAND , SUNGARD AVAILABILITY SERVICES
C loud computing continues to catalyse change in the data centre market and has become the competitive benchmark that data
ONE OF THE COMPETING FACTORS OF DATA CENTRES IS THAT THEY SOLVE PERFORMANCE AND INTEGRATION CHALLENGES BY CONNECTING PARTNERS , CLIENTS AND SUPPLIERS DIRECTLY WITH LOW LATENCY . centre leaders must now meet . While both storage options can provide secure locations that offer fast access to company data at competitive prices , data centre leaders are trying to find ways to add additional value to their customers .
This competition has caused a restructure of how data centres are presented to the market , with a focus less on the physicality of the data centre itself and more on the interconnectivity that they can provide by working within partner ecosystems . One of the competing factors of data centres is that they solve performance and integration challenges by connecting partners , clients and suppliers directly with low latency . Data centre leaders can integrate hybrid IT infrastructures with cloud-based applications and storage solutions .
This provides a direct on-ramp connection to other providers to complete the circle , integrating a vast range of digital services to interact in real time . On-ramp allows businesses to securely scale into the cloud , while also providing colo / infrastructure services that can be a steppingstone to public cloud . Data centre providers can also offer direct access to major Internet exchange points , reducing performance issues felt by many businesses – something the cloud only
DATA CENTRE PROVIDERS ALSO HAVE THE OPPORTUNITY TO ADD FURTHER SERVICES TO THEIR BUNDLES IN ORDER TO MAKE THEM MORE ATTRACTIVE TO PROSPECTIVE PURCHASERS .
goes some way to solving . Data centre providers also have the opportunity to add further services to their bundles in order to make them more attractive to prospective purchasers . On the network side , they can offer security services beyond the Internet and on the storage side , they can offer more consumptionstyled services like Storage-as-a-Service ( SaaS ), creating a halfway house between colo and cloud .
Data centre providers also have the upper hand in terms of cost ; being able to offer a controlled and set cost for businesses , making it easier to budget and allocate spend to IT infrastructure .
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