Using Colocation to Catch up with COVID-19’s Acceleration of Data Demands

Two years in two months. For anyone working in the digital space, Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella’s declaration in late April that the company has seen two years’ worth of digital transformation in two months can’t really be a surprise. Data center traffic had been growing exponentially, and COVID-19 has given it another shot of adrenaline. This means that the ability to quickly develop and scale--as well as sustain--networks is more critical that it already was.

New technologies are giving today’s mobile, digital-first workforce new ways to collaborate with business partners in every corner of the globe. But these technologies rely on one assumption--that that there is a core office and IT infrastructure working behind them. COVID-19 has shattered that assumption. Working from home, entire staffs are wholly reliant on various digital tools to successfully communicate and collaborate.

On the consumer side, things like contactless payments and online grocery ordering have turned from emerging trends to the new normal almost overnight, highlighting for many companies the need to bolster their digital customer experience.

Aggravating Existing Challenges

The situation is a genuine stress test of companies' digital infrastructures, and it’s exacerbating some of the limitations of on-premise data centers and cloud services. Responding quickly and confidently to increased demands is difficult with budgets and staff rapidly shrinking. Customers using cloud services are having to deal with the increased costs that come with increased bandwidth, not to mention greater lag, downtime, and security concerns with public clouds.

Start Strong When Deploying a Colocation Solution

Colocations provide companies the flexibility they need going forward. Existing on-premises data centers can synchronize with co-located data centers to allow businesses to onboard workloads and applications faster, minimize costs through product innovation, and reduce risks through the highest quality standards. There are all particularly sensitive tasks as businesses continue to lockdown staff and so much more work happens remotely.

But deploying a colocation solution is easier said than done. Paying attention to the physical layer supporting the logical layer can help get it up to speed quickly.

Benefiting from Preconfigured Infrastructure

Physical infrastructure includes a lot of separate parts and pieces that need to work together as a whole in order to balance power needs, data requirements, space restraints and cooling capacity. Then there are the necessary considerations for risk redundancy and cooling optimization, and ensuring the connectivity, bandwidth and fault tolerance needed to leverage the latest technology.

To ensure consistently high service levels, whether on-premise or at a colocation facility, preconfigured infrastructure solutions based on proven reference architectures can remove much of the complexity. This facilitates consistent and predictable deployment of solutions that can easily scale globally across an entire enterprise, which simplifies IT and reduces total cost of ownership.

A well-designed physical layer simplifies data center management by improving visibility into resource capacities, making it easier to identify opportunities for operational efficiencies. As improvements are identified, they can be incorporated into the deployment of future designs, building a framework for continuous improvement throughout the data center lifecycle.

Getting Ahead of the Game with Trusted Partners

Thanks to Panduit's fully trained and vetted ecosystem of partners, we are not only up-to-speed but ahead of the game when it comes to converged infrastructure. Our fully tested and validated preconfigured solutions are designed with built-in DCIM capabilities and migration paths already in place to accommodate future scalability and higher data rates. Instead of having to source numerous vendors for a series of global deployments, Panduit will bring in the right partners to meet your requirements and can act as the conduit to a full, future-proofed IT infrastructure.

Access more Panduit resources for optimizing your colocation infrastructure.

Michael Gallagher, Senior Business Development Manager, Panduit, leads global strategy for the colocation business. Mike’s team is responsible for understanding customer needs and positioning Panduit solutions for success. Key focus areas include market analysis, go-to-market planning, and evangelizing Panduit’s colocation offering among stakeholders across Panduit and its partner organizations. Mike has more than 20 years of technology industry experience. Prior to joining Panduit in 2017, he worked in the data center protection solutions industry for a Silicon Valley Fortune 500 software company, where his many accomplishments included the launch of a data center appliance that was named storage product of the year by CRN magazine.