Internet services major Amazon built its first data centers in India. It said it was spending “millions of dollars” to set up datacenters.
“Data center will help accelerate growth,” says Shane Owenby, the managing director-APAC, Amazon Web Services (AWS). While Microsoft has three data centers, IBM has two. There are others too such as Japan’s NTT that have data center operations. According to reports, Chinese giant Alibaba is planning to set up a datacenter.
Growth of datacenters in South-East Asia
Asia-Pacific has become a sought after destination for data centers. According to an APAC Reach report, there is increase in European clients interested in datacenter investments following UK Brexit referendum. Today, Asia-Pacific region is pulsating with such activity.
“Cloud-first strategies are a foundation for staying relevant in this fast-paced world,” says Ed Anderson, the research vice president at international research firm Gartner, adding:“Market for Cloud services has grown to such extent that it is now a notable percentage of the total IT spending, helping to create new generation of start-up’s and ‘born in the Cloud’ providers.”
Vendors are setting up IT infrastructure to help cloud expansion
Chunghwa Telecom, Taiwan’s largest telecom company, opened its £309 million datacenter, near capital Taipei.
“Data centers offer customers fast and reliable services and strengthen the IT ecosystem. Consequently, they boost abilities to support business expansions across multiple industries across the globe,” says Deskera CEO Shashank Dixit.
Why the sudden rush to set up datacenters?
The rush is propelled by software companies shifting from premise-based to Cloud-based technology. IT companies are leaving resources like software license purchases and direct servers and shifting operations into the cloud. They increasingly need reliable and fast infrastructure. Installing data centers is a step towards the objective to support expansion plans.
“Cloud adoption is experiencing growth at an unprecedented speed. Therefore, it is critical that there exists a robust as well as a scalable infrastructure,” adds Shashank.
IT spends to equal $1 trillion either directly or indirectly due to cloud shift in 5 years: Gartner
According to a report by Gartner, IT spends will exceed by $1 trillion either directly or indirectly due to shift to cloud over the next five years, makingcloud computing the most disruptive force in IT. Besides cloud services replacing existing IT systems, new applications are being developed to run purely on cloud. The report goes on to say IT spends that equaled $111 billion for cloud services will grow to $216 billion by 2020, translating into $1 trillion over the coming five years.
Spin off technologies like Big Data and Analytics will also be supported
Data centers will help in the employment of trained staff from segments such as Big Data and Analytics, Software, telecommunications, network design, and business development. It will help growth of Big Data Applications. Plus, datacenters are significant building blocks in the technical architecture. The race for setting up data centers will only keep getting hotter by each passing day.