Colocation Trends for 2019

Clearly two of the biggest trends in 2018 were the dominance of massive, hyperscale cloud data centers and the emergence of new edge computing deployments. In 2019, look for colocation products that attempt to seamlessly integrate hyperscale and edge data centers to support new applications for AI, Internet of Things, autonomous vehicles, big data, etc.

Enterprises in healthcare, financial, manufacturing, and other industries that built their own data centers about a decade ago are now realizing it can cost hundreds of millions of dollars to get those facilities up to modern standards.

They’re also realizing that they need a lot less data center space for the same infrastructure, “making a refresh very cost-prohibitive,” he added. Increasingly, they’re turning to colocation as the alternative, where they can both get up-to-date infrastructure and access to cloud providers, often at a lower cost than keeping everything in-house.

Customers Comfort

Colocation providers are also starting to look for ways they can help customers get their application infrastructure physically closer to end users, both to improve performance and to tame network bandwidth costs. A undeniable trend for 2019. When they are given the choice between a stand-alone data center and a multi-facility data center campus, customers increasingly prefer the campus, especially in top markets. They like the combination of perimeter and facility security. They prefer the option to grow within multiple, fiber-connected buildings.

5G Start Up

5G is the next generation of wireless networking, and it’s going to impact your data center. In a credible presentation it was said that 5G can support 100 times more connected devices and 1,000 times more volume, with 10 times lower latency and 10 times improvement in battery life for wireless devices. Even if 5G is not as great as the hype, it’s going to be good. In 2019, a start up pilot project will begin and we can expect to see 5G make its debut in 2020.

Connectivity becomes critical

Obviously, connectivity has always been important, but it will become even more so in 2019. With public cloud adoption marching upward, connectivity to their remote hyperscale data centers will be important for user experience. Hybrid IT and geographically dispersed workloads will force this issue as well. Edge implementations will be the driver that really forces this issue.

Colocation is both your own data center for private cloud, but also the on-ramp for public cloud. With more enterprises moving to a hybrid approach, colocation providers should continue to thrive.