colocation & outsourcing
ROLE CHANGE
Colocation and outsourcing are constantly changing – driven in part to the maturity of cloud and the increased adoption of homogenised services consumed by subscription . Here , Matt Lovell of Pulsant explores the changing role of colocation and the role it is playing within today ’ s evolving environment .
In a world of cloud and homogenised services consumed by subscription , the profile of colocation and outsourcing is changing significantly . Colocation providers are continuing to evolve their value propositions with connected cloud exchanges and a wide range of cloud and security services , as well as driving synergies and efficiencies . And that ’ s not to forget about the commitment to reducing carbon footprints while maintaining accreditations and compliance with legislation changes especially considering international competition . The perception of outsourcing has been equally challenged as customer buying criteria , global markets and engagements have significantly changed . The London colocation market has long been integral to supporting , amongst others , our financial services sector , where longer term strategies and demand will take time to absorb the Brexit developments and understand wider organisational strategies .
Flexible hybrid service One of the areas service providers should focus on is understanding why , how and what customers are seeking in their purchase of colocation services . Colocation is not just purchased as a stand alone proposition but is increasingly adopted as part of a flexible hybrid service outcome enabling existing platforms to securely share interact at low latency . For many customers , the capital investment in non-core activities , scale of operation , efficiency and legislative targets in managing their own facilities is the compelling event to use colocation . Other drivers include increasing platform availability across multiple sites within a certain latency specification as they migrate from existing on-premise services and change application architectures . As many applications have migrated to cloud , the logical hosting environment for many SaaS providers is a multi-site colocation provider .
Where customers partner for colocation services , they are increasingly seeking support with optimising and consolidating existing rack footprint design , as well as resourcing the migration and transition while mitigating any risk associated with these changes . Customers also benefit from colocation providers ’ hybrid scalable security services and connectivity solutions , where multiple exchanges and carriers are represented . If these services remain on-premise , they can become time consuming , costly and may not scale to meet future requirements . Scale out capabilities of such services is a crucial consideration , as are continuity options . In this expanded ecosystem there is a wide range of recovery and availability services through proven methodologies that can support customers in the definition , testing and provision of business continuity across integrated cloud architectures .
Adapting to changing requirements How is this increasing range of services adapting to changing customer requirements ? We have
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