Data center services market had been growing in demand gradually at a moderate pace and then something unusual happened. Market forecasts in 2019 had prophesized the data center market in India to grow at a CAGR of 4 percent till 2025. However, with the pandemic bringing most industries to a grinding halt, the data center market on the contrary is expected to register a growth rate of double digits. One of the reasons for this rarefied behaviour of the market and the curious turn of events is believed to be the push towards digital transformation in the wake of the pandemic. With more and more enterprises hitting the gas on their digital journeys, the market is witnessing an unprecedented demand for data center services, especially in sectors of BFSI, Logistics & Transportation, eCommerce, Media and Entertainment, and government organizations.

Apart from the digital nudge, there are several other factors which were already at play in driving the growth of the data center market. The increasing usage of cloud based services, the support from the government to build the data center infrastructure along with the regulation making it mandatory to store data within the country, among others had already paved the way for the market’s growth. “In terms of growth in data, India is outpacing even the developed world. More data means more data centres. To meet this growing need, existing and new providers are building new capacities across India,” said Sumit Mukhija, CEO, STT GDC India, a joint venture between Singapore’s STT and Tata Communications.

Metamorphosing out of the cocoon of the primordial purpose of data storage, data centers today have become instrumental in enabling the next big revolution in computing called edge computing.

Metamorphosing out of the cocoon of the primordial purpose of data storage, data centers today have become instrumental in enabling the next big revolution in computing called edge computing. Considering the obvious limitations of speed and bandwidth in case of remote data storage, edge computing has emerged as a reinvention that is underscoring the paramountcy of fast and easy accessibility of data, and data centers are playing an important role in its evolution.

With this newly found purpose, data center demand is presenting itself in various ways. One of the primary ways in which businesses are looking to consume data center services is through Colocation.

Colocation Services   

For those who cannot afford to build a private data center, colocation solutions are proving to be a boon. Focusing on its core competency while having state-of-the-art data center facility to avail on a pay-per-use basis comes as a significant advantage for any player. The ability with which a business can manage and control its infrastructure in this setting is unparalleled even to a private data center as it is a herculean task to equip the data center with such controls. So, if you are having it at your disposal without having to set it up, it may sound as the right option to go for.   

Software Defined Data Center

Following the paradigm shift of the move towards software-defined world to bring in a new level of efficiency is something that is attracting many enterprises to go down the road of having software defined data centers.  Virtualizing the compute and storage power into software form and selling it to customers as a service allows multiple users to manage their services simultaneously. The scalability with this model knows no bounds and can be extended on demand.

Hyperscale Data Centers

When the load demand is astronomical for instance in the case of companies that have to offer comprehensive cloud services, hyperscale data centers is the way to go. Technology behemoths like Google, Apple and Microsoft are the major players in this segment. However, many new players are emerging, looking to build hyperscale data centers in India. Those facilities will come in handy in making use of the burgeoning data churned out of IoT devices, VR systems, and social media analytics.  

Fuelled by the numerous transitions from conventional usage to newer ways of efficient operation, data centers are assuming new roles and redefining data storage, access, and compute.      

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