Tag: data center

Digital transformation is accelerating and churning out data at never before pace. Organisations have been restructuring their infrastructure footprint to meet the evolving digital needs – of businesses, operations and customers. Regardless of scale, technology and nature of digitalisation, data centers form the core focus of any business. Third-party colocation services are, unarguably, becoming a preferred choice for a large proportion of enterprises – we have witnessed this trend during and post-pandemic continuing. This is evident through the growth of data centers and future forecast. According to Arizton Advisory & Intelligence, real estate demand for data centers is set to rise by 15–18 million sq.ft. by 2025 and by 2027, the Indian data center industry will pose $10.09 billion worth of opportunities.

Need for custom data centers
The surge in cloud uptake has made hyperscalers bullish on the Indian market and expand their operations. Data centers form their primary requirement for expansion – and they need massive capacities, which is often a hindrance in a market like India, where data center infrastructure is still in the growth phase. This leads them to leverage the existing data center infrastructure to set up availability zones to cater to the booming demand or build their infrastructure.

But it’s not just the hyperscalers. As the business grows, large enterprises with dependencies on captive infrastructure need scalable and reliable data centers to meet their current and future needs. Further, as they phase out legacy infrastructure and modernise their data centers, a holistic refresh becomes paramount, leading them to move out of on-premises data center setups and build a dedicated data center facility at a preferred location.

Meanwhile, hyperscalers must maintain committed SLAs and operational efficiencies that demand custom data center designs and specifications. Building a data center facility from scratch would be the best approach to accommodate these needs, but it also means increased time-to-market. It includes complex procedures – from land acquisition, regulatory approvals, design and construction, hardware procurement, and meeting the desired Power Usage Effectiveness (PUE) ratio.

Factoring the top challenges

The direct impact of the above constraints includes delayed project completion and significantly greater time-to-market, which can affect your business in a big way.

Build or Buy: Let the experts do it
Whether buying or leasing a data center or building one, getting it done through a local data center player like Yotta offers significant advantages. Yotta possesses the resources, design and construction expertise, connectivity infrastructure, bulk hardware procurement capabilities, and operational skillsets that businesses can leverage and bank upon. Let’s look at some major ways hyperscalers and enterprises gain with outsourced build and buy models.

Cost advantage
Building a data center is expensive, and a lot of elements go into it – from power and UPS infrastructure, diesel generators, cooling systems, storage and networking hardware, and more. Hyperscalers and enterprises can ensure significant cost savings with the outsourced Build-to-Suit (BTS) model. The data center operator can leverage its economies of scale and eventually pass the cost advantage.

Faster Time-to-Market (TAM)
While buying a pre-constructed data center definitely enables your business to go-live within the shortest possible timeline, the custom-build approach extends it owing to the time incurred in land parcel identification and acquisition, government approvals, design and construction, equipment procurement and more. If a custom-build data center is your business need, you can still bring down the time with the Build-to-Suit approach. Domestic data center players also better understand regional topography, which is an essential factor in the design, construction and overall efficiency of a data center.

Efficiency
Data centers are known as power guzzlers, and there is a visible shift towards increased efficiencies and sustainability at various levels – business, industry and customer. Power usage effectiveness (PUE) is a critical factor in ensuring energy optimisation, and it holds greater importance, particularly for global hyperscalers for meeting their sustainability goals. While buying a data center may provide pre-defined PUE ratios, a BTS data center offers greater scope for meeting the desired levels. However, it must be noted that regional climatic conditions largely affect PUE ratios. For example, in a tropical country like India, PUE of 1.5 is considered the lowest achievable level. This is mainly because the Indian climate requires HVAC systems to remain operational 24×7, unlike European regions where natural conditions complement the cooling process.

Network and connectivity
Network and connectivity is the lifeblood of a data center, which eventually determinines performance and business outcomes. The cost of connectivity, however, can account for a significant portion of the overall CapEx. Additionally, with current restrictions on laying own fiber further act as hurdle. Data center operators are better placed to get bulk fiber connectivity, which eliminates time and effort intensive process of negotiating with connectivity providers, while bringing greater cost advantages. Data center operators’ extended connectivity with Internet Exchanges, content delivery networks, cloud service providers further helps ensure seamless connectivity to a host of services.

Compliance
Maintaining compliance with various regulatory norms, guidelines and industry practices involves complex considerations. Uniformity in regulations in different geographical further adds to the complexities. Data center developments, for instance, are classified under commercial or industrial buildings standards, hence parking requirements are also determined accordingly, requiring provisions such as on-grade parking according to local directives. Fire compliance is another critical area that demands critical consideration. Possessing extensive experience in design and construction, data center operators can eliminate the complexities and help make your data center compliant.

Management
With widespread migration from CapEx to OpEx based consumption models, enterprises are shedding investments in keeping the lights on. Modern IT teams’ focus is channelled towards innovation and customer service delivery. Data center operations demand a 24×7, dedicated and skilled resource pool. Moreover, managing a data center building involves more significant complexities than a small captive data center. To avoid maintenance, monitoring and management hassles, enterprises can bank upon the inhouse expertise of data center operators who possess a team of domain experts, engineers, and IT personnel.

The future of data centers lies in ‘scale’. Data growth will continue to skyrocket, and the resultant demand for infrastructure will bolster the growth of data centers. Hyperscalers are bullish on cloud growth and will continue to ramp up investments in India. Led by business needs, an increasing number of enterprises will exhaust their existing data center capacities. While multi-tenant colocation may work for some, many large enterprises need dedicated data centers. The above factors remain key to achieving the end objectives. Data center operators are well positioned to cater to every evolving needs – from colocation, buy-out or build-to-suit. Yotta combines its data prowess in the data center industry with the Hiranandani Group’s capabilities in architecture, construction and power, while leveraging economies of scale.

Once a good-to-hear buzzword, sustainability has evolved as a mandate for global corporations and governments alike. It has prevailed as a strong determinator of a successful business strategy, with commitments towards the planet becoming integral to their objectives. As world leaders set ambitious sustainability goals for their nations, the onus lies equally on the industries to collectively steer efforts in this direction. Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s announcement of India achieving net-zero emissions by 2070 at COP26 Glasgow reflects the government’s strong focus on fostering a sustainable, healthy and better planet for generations to come.

India is unarguably walking the talk in tackling climate change. Today, with private and public partnerships, many developmental schemes are framed to align with the Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) set by the United Nations. Also being one of the least waste generating economies. The country has been a key player in shaping the Paris Agreement and has adopted various energy-efficiency measures. India has demonstrated one of the most successful campaigns on phasing out single-use plastic, amplifying the ‘Swachh Bharat’ mission and constantly contributing to the Earth’s wellbeing. Mumbai alone has announced a detailed plan to zero out carbon emissions by 2050 – a target that puts it two decades ahead of India’s national goal and makes it the first South Asian city to set such a timeline.

Efficiency is key
Data centers, over the years, have been notoriously known as power guzzlers. It is estimated that data centers globally consume around 200 terawatt-hours (TWh) each year. This even exceeds the total annual energy consumption of some countries. Data centers contribute around 0.3% to the overall carbon emissions of the world. This intense energy consumption can be attributed to their critical operations that demand them to run 24×7, but the change is now evident with the focus on bringing more efficiencies and embracing renewable energy sources.

Emerging markets like India, which are in the growth phase, stand in a favourable position to drive greater efficiencies owing to low legacy and ageing infrastructure footprint. We can take cue from Singapore’s moratorium on data center development due to sustainability concerns and channel our efforts towards more efficient, greener data centers.

A typical data center houses thousands of components that keep the facility running – servers, cooling equipment, chillers, power backup and generators, networking equipment, etc. All these require uninterrupted power. Hence achieving carbon neutrality requires data center operators to achieve energy efficiency in each component. Green, alternative energy sources form a part of the solution, but it’s not a master key. There is no master key; it’s only when data center companies evaluate and bring efficiencies in each element of their operations, that they stand in a position to make their facilities environment-friendly.

Taking a green leap
The growing realisation among enterprise customers and hyperscalers is leading to concrete actions. Boardroom discussions are witnessing environmental focus as an inseparable part of corporate accountability and business strategies. Interestingly, a green focus brings a host of long-term business benefits that can positively impact operations and the bottomline. Global enterprises and hyper-scale customers are pushing their data center operators to help them achieve their sustainability targets, thus resulting in focused actions by every stakeholder. For instance, some customers insert clauses into the agreements mandating data center operators to reduce a specified percentage of carbon footprint. In case of failing to do so, the data center operator has to bear penalties which can be as high as 20% of the total contract value.

Even the Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI) has introduced requirements for sustainability reporting by listed companies under the Business Responsibility and Sustainability Report (BRSR). It aims to establish links between the financial results with its Environment, Social and Governance (ESG) performance.

Yotta embraces these developments positively. With our unwavering efforts to invest in building large data center capacities to meet the rising digital demands while investing in our planet, today, Yotta is able to deliver 100% green power to our customers and contractually commit to our global customers to reduce our carbon footprint, in turn helping them in meeting their Scope 3 obligations under the GHG protocol.

Taking a long-term approach, Yotta is building facilities to allow us to run 100% on renewables – whether offsite, through solar and wind coupled with onsite hydrogen-based co-generation and fuel cells in the future. With this, we are changing the entire outlook and efforts towards decarbonisation in the data center industry.

Setting new benchmarks
Yotta’s data centers are built with the lowest possible PUE (power usage efficiency) of <1.4 which are extremely good considering India’s tropical weather. In addition, our fault-tolerant Uptime Institute certified Tier IV construction uses automation in many of our power and cooling distribution processes, thus optimising our power utilisation further.

Here are the top ways how we are and how other data center players can ensure that data centers remain future-ready:

Data Center Site: The site where data center(s) will come up should have adequate space for onsite power generation and storage of energy. At the same time, data center built amidst a green surrounding tends to gain from natural conditions.

Carbon Offsets: Taking steps to reduce carbon footprints, data center operators can compensate carbon emission amounts by adopting measures like planting trees.

Upgrading equipment: Many data centers use old, less efficient equipment. Switching to the latest, more energy-efficient equipment helps a great deal. For instance, at Yotta NM1, we use lithium-ion batteries in UPSes for power backup – ensuring longer output with reduced charge cycles.

Operational excellence: A data center is a building where, space, cooling, power, water etc are utilised. A state-of-the-art Building Management System plays a crucial role in maintaining the sustainability of data centers. By deploying intelligent systems, temperatures in the facility can automatically adjust depending on the outside temperature or the IT load.

Resource optimisation: While using clean source of water, data center operators must also avoid water leakage which might seem negligible, but may add to the energy consumption. Additionally, as data centers need cooling and have to maintain adequate temperature, instances such as air leaks reduce the overall cooling efficiency.

E-waste management: Whether through in-house capacities or partners, e-waste management significantly helps reduce the environmental impact from discarded, old, and obsolete equipment and hardware.

Set on a mission to become a global data center hub, India’s data center industry will continue to grow at an unprecedented scale. However, sustainability and growth must run in tandem to make India a true data center hub and a successful one. Our focus on digitisation, with commitments to ensure healthy planet earth, will determine the future of businesses and the lives of our people.

With a huge rise in digital activities, the number of data centers being created are increasing exponentially. As the number of data centers increase, there is a huge need for establishing connectivity between data centers so that they can talk to each other.

What is Data Center Interconnect?

Data Center Interconnect (DCI) is the technology that is used to connect two or more data centers over short or long range distances. Interconnection is required for not only connecting physical devices such as routers, switches, firewall, servers, etc. in different data centers to each other, but also to support requirements such as backup, IT management, business continuity and disaster recovery. Interconnection between data centers can be established using distributed exchange points hosted in vendor-neutral or any colocation facilities. Data Center Interconnect is also crucial in balancing and sharing resources, especially when demand or traffic grows exponentially.

The need for interconnection between data centers

Due to the huge growth in SaaS services, adoption of work from home, cloud, etc., connectivity has become a very crucial for any business user. The need of the hour is to improve the latency and response time between user and data center. Due to hybrid IT solutions data center traffic has increased exponentially between data centers. This has increased the importance of establishing connectivity between data centers. Interconnectivity helps in creating many-to-many connectivity options, which is of immense value in a connected era. It helps enterprises to reduce latency as distances are reduced. This helps in improving the overall user experience and cost.

Types of Interconnection

Depending on the specific requirement, different types of data center interconnect initiatives can be explored. Some of these include:

Peering Exchange: A peering exchange is a marketplace that allows ISPs to connect with each other and exchange IP traffic for their mutual benefit. This avoids costs that could be incurred in third-party networks for ensuring connectivity. It also helps in improving the end user experience due to shortest and best network route.

Cross Connect: A cross-connect is established through a physical cable that provides direct connectivity between two termination points in a data center. Cross-connects are primarily used to create a direct link between two individual units within a data center.

Inter-Site Connectivity: This type of connectivity is used to establish a physical or virtual data connection between two data centers to reduce link failures, load balance and reduce traffic congestion.

Blended IP: This option combines multiple connectivity options of ISPs to provide a single reliable and redundant connection. Blended IP service providers provide firms with the option of a single redundant Internet connection without the option of negotiating with multiple service providers. This help to get highest speed data transfer as compared to single provider.

The advantage of a data center provider over a telecom service provider

When compared to telecom service providers, data center providers can offer multiple networks which can ensure redundancy. Data center service providers also can purpose-build a Data Center Interconnect service that is specifically customized for enterprise workloads. This allows better scalability and makes it relatively easier for organizations to meet their DR or business continuity requirements.  This is vital in the multi-cloud era, where enterprises need the flexibility to interconnect different data centers without being constrained by interoperability challenges. This is done using open standards-based Data Center Interconnect technology.

Data center service providers also provide a single central option for connectivity irrespective of where the customer’s infrastructure is situated. The customers also do not need to separately approach hyperscaler’s or telcos for connectivity options. The data center provider is responsible for giving next hop connectivity for hyperscaler’s from a single port, from where the traffic can be further diverted.

Benefits for hyperscaler’s

Due to the increasing number of digital activities and initiatives, the demand for hyperscale data centers has shot up exponentially. Networking giant, Cisco, has estimated that hyperscale data centers will account for 55 percent of all data center traffic by 2021. However, hyperscale data center providers cannot grow at the pace they want to without collaborating with service providers who provide colocation or edge data centers. Hyperscaler’s can leverage interconnected data centers provided by colocation providers to quickly expand and be closer to users where the services are expected to be delivered.

By using interconnected data centers, hyperscaler’s can quickly establish a presence in a region that they do not have a presence. With partnerships with major Internet Exchanges, data center providers providing Data Center Interconnect services help in lowering down costs and bringing down the cost of bandwidth as more traffic is locally exchanged.

A must have technology

Data Center Interconnect today, is not optional, but a must-have requirement. This is necessary for ensuring better connectivity at lower operating costs. Looking at the transformational role of the Internet and its impact on the economy, Data Center Interconnect is a critical technology as it can not only make Internet access more affordable, but it can also help in improving the speed of access by a significant percentage as traffic can be routed locally and quickly than international routes.

Digital payments and online commerce have been on the rise for many years; however, with the recent pandemic, this has only fast-tracked. With the increase in transactions, there is an increase in the data. Along with conventional banks, there are neo banks, fintech companies, and payment banks joining the ecosystem. With so many stakeholders involved, and enormous data generated, the Reserve Bank of India in 2018 came with a circular that required the storage of payment system data to be in the country. Additionally, the central government has drafted the personal data protection policy to protect consumers’ interests and safeguard their personal data.

These data regulations provide privileges to customers; however, at the same time, banks and financial institutions need to adhere to more regulatory obligations. Especially, International banks that process the payments data in their country of origin or at data centers that are out of India. While the storage or processing of personal and sensitive data can be done out of India, a mirror copy of the same must be maintained here in India. Additionally, there needs more clarity on what constitutes critical personal data. And this data, labelled as critical and personal, cannot be processed or stored outside India.

If data is the new oil, data centers are the bunkers that secure that oil

With data consumption on the rise, India is witnessing a surge in investments in data centers. While these investments depict the interest of players in the market, the actual realisation of these data centers will take several years, if not many.

So, can International banks or the BFSI industry or foreign companies till then avoid these laws?

While this has been a topic of debate and everyone has their viewpoints, the sooner banks set up their local data storage and processing facilities, the better equipped they would be to scale and handle new customers. Data storage and processing at such a large scale can only be achieved at a third-party data center. Having said this, building or maintaining captive data centers is both time consuming and a costly affair.

How do banks evaluate their colocation needs?

Latency for financial institutions is of prime importance. A moment lost can cost a bank a fortune. Moreover, with repeated downtimes, banks can lose customers faith and subsequently, their business. At the same time, security and meeting compliance requirements is another criterion that banks must evaluate.

Below we outline the seven factors that a bank should consider before making a move to an MTDC

Uptime Institute (UTI) Tier IV Certification – This certification is the epitome of quality. A UTI Tier IV certification assures you of the highest quality and infrastructure standards aligned with international best practices. Built on the concept of redundancy and reliability, a UTI Tier IV data center operates in case of severe disruptions, providing business continuity for your mission-critical operations. For instance, last year, during cyclone Nisarga, Yotta NM1 functioned without any outage; besides this, it was also operational during the famous Mumbai power outage.

Low-latency connectivity – Always prefer data centers with captive fiber connections. Our data center Yotta NM1 is well connected to the world via two dedicated fiber paths, each coming in from Mumbai-Pune Expressway and Old Mumbai-Pune Highway. All major telecom operators are connected with Yotta NM1, ensuring redundant, low-latency, and fail-safe connectivity.

Security and Compliance – This is one of the most critical aspects. Being regulated by various government and semi-government bodies, banks need to meet their compliance and regulatory requirements. Failure to meet these can result in security compromise and financial losses. Yotta meets critical compliance standards like the PCI: DSS 3, ISO/IEC 27001:2013, OPEN IX-DC OIX-2, ISO 9001:2015, ISO/IEC 20000-1:2018, ISO/IEC 27018:2019, and more. Additionally, it also offers robust physical security with industry firsts like Narcotics and Chemical detector, Authorised Key Management System for racks, and more.

Scalable – It makes no sense to work with a colocation provider that can only meet your current requirements. Your business is here to stay and grow. With this growth, you need scalability at the same site for a more seamless transition in the future. And for this, do not just take our word; we recently were honoured with the Innovation in Scalable Banking Infrastructure Award by The Economic Times.

Growing Storage – As with any business, the storage demand of banks is also growing. Banks are generating new data, thanks to online banking and other e-facilities. These data need to be stored, processed, and analysed reliably and securely. It is these data centers that provide a robust and reliable storage solution for these unstructured data. Besides, the cloud’s scalability also makes it easy for banks to access this 24x7x365, irrespective of the circumstances.

Location Advantage – The most ignored factor in selecting the co-location provider. A data center present amidst the commercial and residential hubs is more prone to disruption than a remote location far from the city’s hustle-bustle. Simultaneously, especially for International banks, data centers located in SEZ deliver an added advantage in terms of tax benefits, exemption from GST, Forex billing, and more.

Comprehensive services – An added advantage that banks can derive from the co-location partner where they can offer IT management, security, and other cloud-based applications on As-a-Service model. For instance, the latest Reserve Bank of India (Digital Payment Security Controls) directions, 2021, spells out the need for Fraud Risk Management amongst others. At Yotta, we offer Banking Compliance-as-a-Service that includes Anti-Money laundering solution and Reconciliation & Settlement System on cloud, that is scalable and offers complete risk management compliance solution.

Many banks are moving away from captive data centers to third-party co-location providers. The benefits are enormous. At Yotta, thanks to our state-of-the-art infrastructure, like Building Management System (BMS), you can remotely monitor your set-up without stepping out. Besides, in case of urgent deployments or emergency maintenance, teams can utilise our on-premise stay facilities at our comfortable service apartments.

Still not convinced. Schedule a tour of our data center and experience yourself.

The digital revolution has picked up a faster pace since the Covid-19 outbreak and data has become the most valuable commodity. The potential threat of downtime is keeping enterprises on their toes as it can jeopardize their goodwill and market reputation and have a long-lasting impact on revenue, productivity, and overall customer experience. A disruption like this can even pose a threat to their existence.

However, despite being informed and aware of the consequences of the downtime, we keep hearing about incidents across the globe where power or IT outages have wreaked havoc on organisations. And it is not a new phenomenon. These kinds of incidents have been taking place over a decade now. But the most surprising part is that the industries like BFSI, who are the flag-bearers of digital transformation, have also been the downtime victims.

A case in point here is India’s leading private sector bank, which recently suffered an unexpected power outage at its primary data center. It impacted several of its services for a few hours leading to a string of unhappy customers and the loss of millions in revenue, thereby affecting its brand reputation. And this was not the first time – the bank faced outages in 2018 and 2019 as well. In December 2019, technical glitches in one of the bank’s data center affected its digital banking transactions.

Mitigating the risk of downtime

Such disruptions in the digital operations of the leading bank of the country rightly point towards the enterprise segment’s lack of preparedness in case of downtime. The banking industry has a lot of catching up to do on the technological front.

Indian banks’ digital transformation exercise gained momentum during the current unprecedented situation. Thanks to the scalable data center infrastructure being the backbone of their operations, all-digital banking channels have been open for customers in these times of uncertainty. Banks certainly realise the critical role played by data centers that not only help accelerate their digitalisation journey and power their mission-critical facilities but also keeps them functional and boost digital engagement with customers (the foundation of customer experience starts with the data center).

As data centers are essential for the Indian banking industry to remain resilient, banks need to strategically look at them to continue innovating without facing any downtime. For instance, a short power flick in a data center can bring down the entire banking system for at least a couple of hours. Hence, apart from making increased technology investment, banks need to plan to mitigate against all kinds of risks.

The results of the Uptime Institute Annual Data Center survey indicates that outages are becoming more damaging and expensive. A single outage can cost over $1 million and power failures, which impact everything on-site and can cause knock-on effects, are the most likely cause of major outages.

The right colocation partner can make all the difference

It is a known fact that data centers are extremely demanding and complex infrastructure to manage. At the same time, enterprises understand the inherent risks of a power outage. Hence, they are gradually moving away from a captive setup to third-party data centers as part of the risk mitigation strategies.

This holds for banking organisations to ensure 100% uptime of all their critical infrastructure and systems. We live in an era where there’s a strong push towards digital payments, but frequent outages won’t do good to either banks or their customers. And that’s why many Indian banks partner with multi-tenant data centers that deliver superior uptime compared to a captive data center.

While selecting a colocation partner, banks need to look at data center infrastructure and how it is designed, built, and operated to the highest global standards for resiliency and reliability. Simultaneously, the data center or colocation provider needs to assure banks of their guaranteed performance. The SLA should provide the uptime of the server racks and IT equipment. In case of a disaster or crisis, is the colocation provider equipped to ensure business continuity?

Key considerations

The focus should be on real redundancy. The ideal resilient and scalable colocation should:

Be able to sustain any single point of failure.

Be truly fault-tolerant.

Be resilient in all respects – electrical, cooling, building structure, accessibility, fiber redundancy, 48 hours of backup via generators, stay facility for client’s IT staff in case of urgent deployments.

In the light and learning from what has happened with the leading private bank or one of the largest cloud companies in not-so-distant past, and many such examples in the past, I would say that whether you are hosted at your own captive data center or a third-party data center, it need a serious audit in terms of its fault tolerance.

Additionally, it should meet the scaling needs of the bank and deliver rack and power capacity even after 25 years. It should also allow you to scale down without any capital or operational cost implications.

Hence, BFSI companies need to ensure that they host at an Uptime Institute design certified Tier IV data center. An Uptime Institute design certified Tier IV Data center can function uninterrupted in power outages and disasters. Any failure in power or cooling systems or any other parameter will not bring down a customer’s rack or any other infrastructure at any point of time, thus ensuring customers’ operational continuity. If you are hosting or planning to host at any data center, check their Uptime Institute Tier IV certification status here.

The most viable option

By now, it is evident that no organisation is immune to the threat of downtime. Coincidentally, the banking sector has been facing the wrath of these outages more than any other industry. We may agree that one-off such unexpected incidents temporarily disrupt their services or lead to other intermittent issues. Still, if the banks continue to grapple with frequent downtime, then it not only causes serious inconvenience to the customers but also exposes the weakness of their digital infrastructure and operational resilience. Besides, this puts their brand reputation at risk and increases customers’ chances of switching to other banks.

With the Indian government pushing digital transactions, the IT infrastructure that supports the digital delivery of financial services must be reliable. Looking at the significant rise in the failure rates, the industry experts are calling for greater investment by banks to overhaul their infrastructure to keep pace with the growing customer demand.

In the wake of these system outages and lapses in providing digital banking services by the country’s major banks, even Reserve Bank of India has urged banks and financial institutions to increase investments and strengthen their IT systems and technology.

In this endeavour, banks must do all the due diligence regarding reliability, redundancy, resiliency, and scalability, before selecting their digital infrastructure partner. Upon closely looking at the cause of the outage incidents that rocked the services of India’s leading banks, you realise that they can be better prepared if they have a robust supporting infrastructure. Hence, banking organisations must keep in mind that if their colocation provider is not Uptime Institute Tier IV-certified, it would not be able to deliver 100% uptime, which exposes a direct vulnerability to their business.

Technology for MSMEs: Outsourcing with a third-party data center and cloud service provider helps small businesses to utilize modern IT infrastructure and updated IT services. Startups have been depending on data centers and cloud solutions to run smoothly without having to establish additional technology infrastructure.

Technology for MSMEs: India is proving to be a land of promise for the emergence of new-age companies after the Government of India’s massive push on the Startup India campaign. The year 2019 was a big hit for Indian startups; with technology startups in the country raising a record $14.5 billion in investments from Indian and international investors according to a report by Tracxn. However, the global pandemic of Covid-19 has brought with it many unexpected challenges for the startup ecosystem. Startups are now looking towards technology solutions to combat these challenges and come out successfully from the downturn.

Over the years, startups have been depending on data centers and cloud solutions to run smoothly without having to establish additional technology infrastructure of their own. In the current scenario, startups must channelize their limited resources intelligently to reap out maximum benefits for continuity of their operations, focus on customer acquisition and expansion. Outsourcing with a third-party data center and cloud service provider helps small businesses to utilize modern IT infrastructure and updated IT services. Here are some reasons why data centers and cloud solutions are paramount for small business and startups:

Scalable Data storage

Data generation is increasing at a flying pace. Storing data in their own servers can be difficult and would call for additional investment every time there’s a need for more storage capacity. When a startup uses a colocation data center to fulfil their storage needs, they can increase their capacity whenever required and as quickly as the need arises. Moreover, the need is addressed easily without any hassle by altering the current plan and updated as per estimated increase. What’s equally important is the ability to scale down when the demand is low so that the company is able to make savings on their infrastructure costs when the demand diminishes.

Reliable connectivity

A robust multi-carrier network ensures that start-ups have 24×7 access to the data stored and their workloads. Data centers with multi-tenant facilities enable small businesses and startups to enjoy the features of a modern data center that could traditionally only be afforded by big companies. Startups can gain from technology stability, boosted performance and high-end hosting capabilities with the latest software applications.

Improved security & compliance

Data is an asset for every company. As operations increase, businesses must make sure that they take appropriate measures to secure their data. Co-locating at a third-party data center will help start-ups to safeguard their own data as well as client data due to strict access protocols/industry standards being adhered by data centers.

Additional managed services

A business needs much more than data storage and data management for a robust IT infrastructure. Multi-tenant colocation providers serve as integrated IT managed providers along with storage facilities to companies, for example, cloud computing, managed security and IT managed services. These services allow small businesses to work with big data analytics to retract potential insights at a small price, which ultimately leads to improved efficiency and productivity. Businesses are planning to explore innovative and cost-effective BCP solutions and are inclined to move to ‘Anything as a Service’ (XaaS) to harness new technologies. This would provide them with a strong suite of services from service providers and support to drive their business growth.

Enhanced cost efficiencies

Last but not the least, opting to outsource data center services would help startups save a lot of funds. One of the most common reasons due to which startups cease their operations is a shortfall of funds. Building and maintaining an on-premise data center takes a lot of financial, manpower, and time investments that small businesses may not be able to afford. Data center service providers allow them to pay as per their usage and work on the OPEX model instead of blocking funds in a capital investment.

A startup business is known for its innovative ideas, raw energy, incredible passion, amazing talent, and hunger to reach the top. But with the disruption that Covid-19 has brought into an already highly competitive market requires startups to be leaner than ever before and maximize their resources. Hence, reaching out to a colocation data center service provider for a highly scalable and efficient infrastructure layer and the best-in-class cloud services for their business will enable them to succeed in the ecosystem.

Source: https://www.financialexpress.com/industry/msme-tech-smart-data-storage-how-msmes-startups-can-channelise-limited-resources-for-maximum-benefits-amid-covid/2022351/