yotta, Author at Yotta

How will Data localization impact the Data Center Market in India?

Posted on October 11, 2019October 4, 2022 by yotta

India – the Land of Rising Data

India is one of the largest generators of data currently. Thanks to our young demographic and deep technology penetration, our data consumption is expected to grow at the rate of 72.6% by 2020 according to a study by Assocham-PwC. Digital data in India was around 40,000 petabytes in 2010; it is likely to shoot up to 2.3 million petabytes by 2020 — twice as fast as the global rate. There is a debate going on in the country currently to store the enormous amount of data within national borders.

Data Localization – Gathering Momentum

The Data Protection Act suggested by the Srikrishna committee, aims at protecting the data of citizens by storing it locally. Another reason for data localization is to help government form better domestic policies for its citizens; RBI has already come out with the mandate for companies to store all the financial data locally.

This move has led to many companies ramping up their data center capacity in the country. Amazon has invested around $197 million (Rs 1,380 crore) in its data services arm in the country. Similar aggressive plans have been announced by ByteDance, Google, Microsoft and many financial institutions. Flipkart too has been strengthening its technology infrastructure. It opened its third data center in Hyderabad in April this year after Chennai and Mumbai, especially after acquisition by Walmart. The Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI) has also announced its intention to come up with guidelines that will mandate foreign entities to store data pertaining to India locally.

This has generated a lot of interest in the data center business, among large conglomerates and global tech giants.

Rush for the Data Center Pie

The Hiranandani Group recently entered the data center space with Yotta Infrastructure with plans to build 3 data center parks across Mumbai, Navi Mumbai and Chennai with a capacity of 60,000 racks. The Adani Group has committed to developing large data center parks in Andhra Pradesh over the next 20 years. Existing data center players like Sify, STT, CtrlS, NTT are planning to ramp capacities and international players like Colt and Bridge have also announced their first data center project in India.

Most of the players have officially made statements in media that government’s decision to move forward with data localization is one of the major reasons why they are bullish on data center market. India currently needs to ramp up its data center capacity by at least 15 times in next 7 to 8 years to be able to handle the massive amount of data influx that will enter its borders because of data localization.

How Does this Help Local Businesses?

The next logical question is – will data localization help Indian businesses? It certainly will. Storing data locally will reduce network latency and improve speed. Companies can expect availability of quality talent at lower cost with all data getting stored locally and with the existence of many other strong market drivers like growth of user data, e-commerce, growth of cloud etc. Some of the latest providers with resource ownership will be able to build massive capacities of data centers at much higher scalability and quality but at much reduced costs and round-the-clock personal service. Big Basket, the online grocery store shifted its data centre from Singapore to Mumbai and noticed up to 10 per cent improvements in transaction efficiency.

If one was to compare the cost of manpower, real estate and bandwidth, India is at least 60% cheaper than US or Singapore. These savings will ultimately go to the customers looking for rack space. With large corporate houses having their own power generation and distribution capacities coming in, the cost of data centers should also reduce significantly. Some providers will also utilise selective benefits as made available by Government in terms of duties and taxes levied on power and on the imported equipment/services.

India is a more viable and economic place to build and operate large scale Data centers. Hopefully the government will stick with its decision to go ahead with data localization and we will soon be storing our data in our own land.

Why our Data Centers need to be more energy efficient and sustainable?

Posted on August 9, 2019November 11, 2022 by yotta

India is the second-largest market for data centers infrastructure and second-fastest-growing market in Asia/Pacific after China. India will be a $7 billion data center market by 2020 according to a report by Cushman & Wakefield, and Propstack.

We are currently the largest consumers of data in the world and thanks to our internet and mobile penetration we are likely to hold this position for some time to come. Video streaming and e-commerce have been a big game changer but the advent of Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Internet of Things (IOT) is simply going to change the entire landscape. AI and IoT are power hungry processes that will require hyper scale, high density data centers with unlimited power supply.

Cloud is a reality. But these ‘clouds’ reside in physical data centers that are earth bound with massive environmental costs involved. And with all major global cloud players shopping for Indian data centers, the demand for hyperscale DCs is real and growing.

This trend is likely to put an enormous amount of strain on energy supplies plus contribute to global warming. According to a Greenpeace 2017 report, if the global IT industry were a country, only China and the United States would contribute more to climate change.

According to Google, a typical search using its services requires as much energy as illuminating a 60-watt light bulb for 17 seconds and typically is responsible for emitting 0.2 grams of CO2. Add all the searches that you do in one year and the amount of CO2 emitted by your keystroke will stagger you.

No wonder Google went data-lite. Google and Microsoft have recently built hubs in Finland, where renewable energy is aplenty and readily available. Google last year also signed a deal to buy all the energy from the Netherlands’ largest solar energy park, to power one of its four European data centers. Apple has a 14MW solar farm on its data center site in Maiden, North Carolina that takes up 100 acres. There are two other solar farms of about the same size in the area.

Recently, cloud giant Switch, which operates three of the world’s top 10 data centers, announced its plans for a solar-powered hub in central Nevada. This plant will be the largest in the world outside China. The same Greenpeace report mentioned above also revealed that they are seeing a significant increase in the prioritization of renewables among some of the largest internet companies. “Global Energy System Based on 100% Renewable Energy – Power Sector” a study presented on November 8, 2017 during the United Nations Climate Change Conference, stated that renewable energy potential and technologies, including storage, will be able to generate sufficient and secure power to cover the entire global electricity demand by 2050.

So where does India stand in all of this? As well know, Asia is where the fastest global growth in data traffic is now taking place. Most corporations in this region have been tight-lipped about their energy performance, claims Greenpeace. But with most of the region’s energy coming from coal-fired power stations, our carbon footprint cannot be anything but large.

In this scenario, what we need is for companies to start focusing on renewable, green and clean energy. It’s understandable that entire operations of any data centre cannot depend on these energy resources. The technology for storing energy from these sources is developing and will take some time before it enters the market commercially.

However, a part of our operations can be and must adhere to these alternative sources of energies. DC infrastructure developers and operators must look into solar, gas and adiabatic cooling systems to lower their PUE and other energy needs. It is not just a measure to reduce our carbon footprint but also a way to lower costs, thus benefitting everyone.

It is high time that we start developing DC infrastructure that is smart, clean and more cost effective for everyone involved.