Top Challenges Facing Cloud and Colocation Providers in 2022

In this interview, Max Smolaks, senior editor at Data Center Knowledge and Vladimir Golabov, head of cloud and data center research practice at Omdia, discuss the impact of the semiconductor shortage on the industry.

Golabov expects a difficult year for the smaller cloud and colocation providers, especially if they are planning to launch new services. Industry-wide staff shortages are likely to push data center operators to work smarter and embrace a higher degree of automation.

In these difficult circumstances, many organizations will be looking at ways to make their existing IT go further.

“One advice I would give colocation providers is to advise their clients that not every workload requires the latest technology, and not every workload requires a new server,” Galabov told Data Center Knowledge. “One of the things that we have seen in general over the last few years is the market for refurbished equipment – sometimes even equipment that was decommissioned, taken apart, and then put together again.”

“If you don’t need the best performance for a workload, I actually think that this is on way to go around the availability challenge.”

Find out more about Omdia's cloud and data center practice