New research conducted by IDC has found that while 2017 represents a massive year for hyperscale data centres, this will not be at the expense of colocation facilities.

This is according Greg McCulloch, CEO of Aegis Data, who states that the scalability of OCP-ready colocation facilitates will provide customers with a better environment to host and grow their IT infrastructure.

The IDC’s report claimed that while the industry is at a record high of 8.6 million data centre facilities, after this year, there will be a significant reduction in server rooms.

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This is due to the growth and popularity of public cloud based services, occupied by the large hyperscalers including AWS, Azure and Google, which is expected to grow to 400 hyperscale data centres globally.

Despite this, colocation is expected to grow alongside wholesale and hyperscale. “The influence of hyperscalers in the data centre market is increasing by the year, but this won’t hinder the growth of colo[cation] facilities,” said McCulloch.

“Customers are constantly looking for the right solutions to better support their IT needs, and colocation facilities are using hyperscalers as a template for this success. Many of the most popular cloud-based companies such as Google and Microsoft have invested time and resources into becoming OCP-ready and colos have followed in their footsteps.”

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“The popularity of OCP, particularly with the hyperscalers, has trickled down towards customers who are becoming more alert to the benefits that this new innovation can offer. An OCP environment enables customers to have a more scalable solution that can be easily upgraded to respond to market trends and future-proof requirements of servers even years down the line.”

“Data centres within organisations are largely constrained, whereas OCP can easily re-deploy for different applications such as HPC, reducing costs associated with application-specific systems, leading to space efficiency, flexibility and lower operating expenses.”

Data centre demand is being constantly being pushed by new technologies and more organisations will begin moving away from internal facilities. Instead organisations will move towards outsourced services.

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“In the growing digital age where we’re seeing millions of data exchanges occurring at any given moment,” continued McCulloch, “colocation facilities have had to move with the times, ensuring efficiencies and economies-of-scale for their customers.”

“The traditional infrastructure of data centres that has worked well for a number of years has started showing signs of age especially with the advent of new technologies such as IoT and the introduction of 5G networks. This could explain why we’re seeing a decline in server rooms, but at the same time why there is a greater uptake in OCP, as customers are growing more wary that this environment can better handle these fluctuating trends.”

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