Virtual technology is significant enough in the modern-day tech landscape that it has put the colocation and managed hosting services market on the radar of analysts. A recent report profiles AT&T, CenturyLink, Digital Realty, Equinix, Level 3 Communications, Rackspace and Verizon (News - Alert) Communications and the challenges faced in this market, namely network complexity.
Specifically, network infrastructure in this instance means network traffic. What is driving this segment is storage and application deployment via the Internet. When you look at the big players, like Google (News - Alert) and Facebook, we are seeing a lot of information being processed, so much that data and network traffic has increased significantly, ergo, the market is poised to do well by 2019.
No numbers were released by the analysis; however, looking at the colocation for businesses overall, the advantages speak for themselves.
Businesses often have a separate in-house server room used to house their data. Unfortunately, the inescapable truth is that needs are changing and applications are becoming more complex. What happens is that the in-house infrastructure is pushed to the limit. Colocation services increase the flexibility of infrastructure, the availability of data and the security of the network while driving down maintenance costs.
In terms of managed hosted services, by offloading core components to a managed services provider, an organization is able to monitor their equipment more effectively, have better uptime metrics and reduce their internal workload.
Given that the Internet is becoming a complex environment with data clogging up the airwaves, so to speak, organizations are facing data center challenges every day ranging from limited capacity to power and cooling issues. This is where making the right decision around managed services and colocation can truly be beneficial.
Other analysis puts the managed services market on track to hit $193.34 billion by 2019, so, yes, the outlook is promising.
Edited by Rory J. Thompson