The data center is always too big or too small, and constantly in motion. A hybrid approach presents itself to meet the current challenges in terms of scalability.
On-prem, cloud first, or something in between? That’s a question many companies struggle with. While the cloud-first strategy is largely behind us, a full on-prem environment is not always preferred due to scalability issues. All participants in the round table discussion about data centers, organized by ITdaily, agree on a hybrid approach. “The right workloads in the right place,” states Hendrik Devos, Technical Sales Leader at Kyndryl.
Also at the table are David Louis, Managing Director of Digital Realty in Belgium, Robbert Lambrechts, Technical Presales Specialist at Lenovo, Kenneth Deviaene, Senior Solution Sales for Combell, and Thomas Van Tricht, Key Account Manager Cloud Service Providers at Schneider Electric.
On-prem or cloud first
Louis looks back on a trend from fifteen years ago, when companies massively moved their racks from under the stairs to colocation facilities. “We notice a very clear shift in what customers want today,” Devos observes. “Where it first started with a shift from own data centers to large colocation facilities as David mentioned, there’s an even more recent trend known as the cloud-first strategy. In the past, I worked at a company with an ambitious plan, namely to become the first European customer to run entirely on Microsoft Azure. Well, that didn’t happen,” Devos says with a laugh. “That strategy was later revised from cloud-first to cloud-smart, and that’s the philosophy we now share with our customers.”
The right workloads in the right place.
Hendrik Devos, Technical Sales Leader at Kyndryl
“Today we have a public cloud that we can no longer imagine our society without,” Louis begins. Everyone around the table seems to agree with this. Yet the cloud-first strategy seems to have been more of a short-lived hype. “Cloud service providers have done a fantastic job, only the financial picture of the cloud often disappoints,” says Devos. And that’s where some companies face challenges. Many customers have already returned from the cloud.
Or hybrid after all
From on-prem, to cloud-first, or hybrid after all? Everyone around the table agrees that hybrid models offer the answer today. “In the past, we had data center A connected to data center B as a backup. Now such a simple connection is almost impossible with all the different services like SaaS or platform services,” Louis states. The hybrid model requires much more interconnection.
Deviaene also notices this hybrid trend. “Many customers choose cloud services in both our own managed cloud and with hyperscalers, sometimes in combination with things running locally or in colocation”. According to him, there are various reasons for this. “Latency is one of them, but political factors also make them prefer to run certain things locally.”
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“The typical concerns about control of one’s own data and privacy is one of the reasons to opt for on-prem data centers,” Van Tricht continues. “Colocation providers are responding to this evolution by creating edge data centers that are closer to the user and where data is managed locally.” He is also convinced that IT infrastructure will always remain a combination of different solutions and services from different providers.
Risk shift
“The cloud offers advantages for a workload that needs to scale or be upgraded quickly,” Devos clarifies. “However, there are also workloads that are not ready for the cloud or where a business case is lacking.” Lambrechts chimes in with Lenovo’s ‘TruScale’ model where customers can choose what they manage themselves or want to outsource. Instead of buying or renting a fixed infrastructure, with TruScale you can step into a billing model based on kilowatt consumption of your server.
For Van Tricht, scalability is one of the crucial reasons to choose colocation. ‘Data is growing exponentially, and no one knows how that will evolve. This unpredictability increases when we talk about AI,’ he says. ‘I believe colocation specialists can play an important role here because companies will be able to grow when necessary.’
Devos sees this more as a risk shift in scalability. ‘The risk is actually passed on to colocation providers. On one hand, data centers shouldn’t be overcrowded, but on the other hand, there shouldn’t be too much vacancy either.’ He also notices this in practice. ‘For customers, it seems as if we have infinite space available and can scale when needed, but for us, it’s a continuous balancing act.’ Devos compares it to hyperscalers. ‘There, the problem isn’t physical, but rather related to electricity and capacity limits.’
Too gig or too small
‘The data center will always be too big or too small,’ states Louis. Some companies will need more space in a data center at a certain point, while others will need less. ‘We ensure that our occupancy rate is utilized as optimally as possible.’
The data center is always too big or too small.
David Louis, Managing Director of Digital Realty
‘Someone who builds a data center today will make an assessment of the current situation, but that is changeable,’ says Louis. Not only in terms of density, i.e., the available surface area, but also the amount of power needed and the required specialization.
Devos is also skeptical of companies building their own data center. ‘Techniques such as cooling and power supply are continuously evolving and require a certain degree of specialization. Rationally speaking, this is almost unfeasible for companies,’ he states.
One of the reasons why companies would make this heavy investment themselves is regulation. However, Devos considers this more of a fallacy. Van Tricht adds: end customers require colocation specialists to comply with regulations, just as colocators require this from their suppliers. We all have to comply.
In the middle
The answer to the question of where best to run your workloads today lies somewhere in the middle. If you choose on-premises, everyone agrees that it’s best to outsource this to a colocation. Preferably within a hybrid approach, where you place the right workloads in the right place. In any case, building your own data center space as a company seems increasingly difficult to justify.
This article is part of a series following the round table on data centers organized by ITdaily. Read here for more.