We are living in an inflection point in the data centre industry, with phenomenal colocation growth in Singapore and the region fuelled by rapid digitalisation and the rise of the public cloud. The large number of Internet users also means that Southeast Asia’s Internet economy is projected to hit US$300 billion by 2025, a staggering sum that cannot be ignored.
As we enter the new year, expect the following three colocation trends ahead.
Demand for Edge Data Centres
Demand for data centres is set to rise as organisations around the world turn to the Internet of Things (IoT) for applications ranging from healthcare to retail. The result is an enormous torrent of data destined for edge facilities, which offer lower latency and better reliability due to their closer proximity to the source.
Indeed, the Cisco Global Cloud Index estimates that IoT growth will generate 275 times more data than IP traffic by 2020. Handling so much data will require a vast network of data centres to power the relevant IT hardware and supporting infrastructure. This is best enabled by a network of edge data centres that must be built quickly and efficiently.
On this front, prefabricated or modular data centres that can offer the same security and resiliency of a traditional data centre is required. Crucially, these facilities are also “repeatable”, which means that the same edge configuration can be easily deployed at multiple physical locations.
Colocation Growth to Continue
There is no doubt that the strong pace of growth in the colocation space will continue. In Singapore, as much as 140MW of capacity is scheduled to come online over the next year. Hyperscale facilities are also being built in other Southeast Asia countries such as Indonesia and Thailand to cater to surging demand.
A lot of this growth can be attributed to the rapid expansion of cloud giants such as Amazon Web Services (AWS), Microsoft Azure, Google Cloud, and Alibaba Cloud. Indeed, almost all cloud regions are operated from colocation data centres, as the cloud giants eschew building their own data centre for speed to market.
Of course, organic demand for data centres should not be discounted either. This is particularly the case as enterprises turn to hybrid IT for the heightened performance it offers; or are compelled to do so in the face of increasing regulations around privacy and data localisation.
The Advanced Data Centre
According to Dave Johnson of Schneider Electric, the demand for data centre space is also driving the need for analytics and other advanced technologies. Modern data centres now incorporate a plethora of IoT systems that furnish data in real-time to facilitate monitoring and maintenance.
For instance, the EcoStruxure platform from Schneider Electric is cloud-based and collects data from various data centres and building devices and infrastructure. The data points from hundreds of data centres are then stored in a data lake, and analytics applied to understand when a certain piece of equipment needs maintenance as well as how to increase efficiency.
Expect these systems to grow smarter, allowing for the automation of more aspects of the data centre operation than ever. In the meantime, you can learn more about the next-gen DCIM system powering Schneider Electric’s EcoStruxure here.