Why Companies Are Making The Move To Managed Colocation with VPLS’s Jay Smith
In today’s competitive business landscape where time is money and data has become the universal key to success, companies are becoming savvier than ever when it comes to finding IT solutions that make doing business more productive, efficient, and cost-effective.
Here, we sit down with VPLS’s Data Center VP and General Manager, Jay Smith, to get to grips with the thriving demand for data center colocation, and why companies are opting for managed colocation as a supportive IT solution for their digitally transforming business.
Understanding the global demand for data center colocation
Valued at $46.08 billion in 2020 and expected to grow at a 15.7% CAGR to reach over $202 billion by 2030, the global data center colocation market is well and truly on the rise.
Smith says that VPLS has seen colocation demand continue to trend sharply upwards over the last 24 months, attributing this growth to the distributed workforce that the ongoing pandemic has set in motion.
“Especially during the first twelve months of the outbreak, there was a big push by clients to transition infrastructure into our data centers as their employees shifted to working remotely and the company’s digital assets had to be accessible from anywhere,” he says.
VPLS experienced a particularly steep increase in colocation demand from organizations operating in the film, media, and medical industries, as mass volumes of data – from MRI scans to terabits of film content – had to be stored and accessed by professionals in these fields, from wherever they were individually located.
Now, as more businesses are more permanently embracing WFH and other remote working models, and as they strive to adopt new technologies in the face of rapid digital transformation, the demand for third-party colocation is only increasing among companies of all kinds and sizes, all around the world.
Making the move to managed colocation: why do it?
Simply put, many businesses do not have the knowledge, capacity, or resources to securely and effectively manage their own data; a system that requires not only the physical servers, data centers, storage and network connectivity, but also the expertise to configure, maintain, and manage these assets.
“When it comes to your own hardware, there is a certain skill set that many businesses don’t quite have that makes it difficult for them to store and manage their own data,” Smith says, and that’s where managed colocation comes into play.
Managed colocation extends the benefits of typical data center colocation services to include assistance with physical hardware, system administration, server backups, network equipment management, and proactive response monitoring.
With 19 data centers across North America, Europe and Asia, as well as over 68,000 servers in management, VPLS has the resources to execute best practice when it comes to housing, managing, and securing company data, which allows clients to simply tap into key industry knowledge, connections, and purpose-built infrastructure.
“We really become an extension of your IT department and help to ensure the security, flexibility, and cost control of your data management systems,” he says, allowing business customers to save time and money on operating in-house IT systems to host their data, and shift their focus back to their core business – whatever that may be.
Distributed workforces shaping the future of colocation
Considering the prevailing correlation between increasing data center demand and the uptake in distributed working and digital transformation, Smith has no doubt that colocation – in combination with cloud and edge computing – will continue to play an important role in digital business operations moving forward.
“After years of slowly adopting the internet, the media and entertainment industries are expanding into a larger colocation environment as they shift to a hybrid home/office workforce, and we’re experiencing other verticals doing the same,” he says.
So, as more businesses look to interconnect and seek a reliable, secure, and cost-effective IT solution to do so, then providers like VPLS will be there to support companies along their connectivity journey, of which colocation is sure to remain an integral part.
Convinced that managed colocation could help make your business run smoother?
Head to VPLS’s page on Cloudscene to see what they can do for your organization, or reach out to Cloudscene’s team of experts in colocation for assistance with your next data center project or implementation strategy.
Contributor – Jay Smith, VP & GM, Data Centers, VPLS
A pioneer in data center infrastructure development, VPLS is proud to have Jay Smith as the company’s Vice President & GM of Data Centers. Jay has over 20 years of experience in telecommunication and data center management including deep knowledge of voice and data communication, fiber optic connectivity, data center design, colocation, managed services and related technologies.
Prior to joining VPLS, Jay was the co-founder of Cyberverse. Established in 1994, Jay’s leadership over the past 25 years enabled Cyberverse to earn the reputation as one of the most trusted Internet infrastructure services companies in the industry.
Today, Jay is responsible for all VPLS data centers operations across the United States and consults with clients on determining the most appropriate combination of physical data center locations and customized infrastructure solutions to meet their specific needs.
