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Transformation and adaptation of new solutions to business are underway

The need for digital transformation and the growing market for data center interconnecting services are changing the definition and requirements of data center networks. Today, applications and data processing operations that constitute the digital source of life for modern organizations are distributed not only throughout local data centers, but also in many cloud networks. The changes are underway. The need for new solutions was clearly demonstrated by the pandemic, as a result of which enterprises had to change their current operating model.

During the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, enterprises that were already at an advanced stage in introducing digital transformation were able to quickly shift to remote work. By continuing to digitize, which allows them to increase efficiency and maintain a competitive advantage, companies are now introducing solutions based on multiple clouds simultaneously.

“Connecting to the cloud has become an indispensable solution for enterprises – both small businesses and large corporations. Cloud services help in remote management of customers’ IT infrastructure and systems for end users. Other benefits include supporting the achievement of critical goals or streamlining of internal planning and control processes,” says Leszek Szczęch from Colt Technology Services.

The expert predicts that the demand for cloud services will grow. It is estimated that the size of the global market of interconnection between data centers will grow from USD 7.9 billion (EUR 6.7 billion) in 2020 to USD 14.0 billion (EUR 11.8 billion) by 2025, and the cumulative growth will be 12.1% for the same period.

The popularity of the cloud has grown to such an extent that now 94% of companies worldwide use the cloud, and 85% of them perform over half of their computing operations in the cloud. For this purpose, they connect to several cloud environments at the same time. Gartner suggests that technology vendors should use cloud growth rates to analyze the market.

Enterprises are increasingly opting for hybrid and multicloud approaches, allowing them to build and run critical applications faster on the infrastructure best suited to their business needs.

However, during the coronavirus pandemic, it turned out that simply extending the data center network to connect to the cloud is not a sufficient solution. The data center network also needs to be comprehensively upgraded and properly structured to meet performance requirements in day-to-day operations. The evolution of the data center network must include native integration with cloud services such as AWS, Oracle Cloud, Google Cloud Services and Microsoft Azure while reducing the complexity of network management and security requirements. 

The advent of cloud computing has transformed the way IT services are delivered, providing unprecedented levels of flexibility and agility. Enterprises such as Amazon, Colt Technology Services, Microsoft, and Google offer a range of on-demand connectivity options to multiple clouds simultaneously. Multicloud services enable enterprises to tailor the right service choice to each task. By engaging multiple clouds, IT departments can focus on the key drivers of enterprises’ innovation and competitive advantage – applications and data. Today, a company can build the infrastructure that best suits their unique needs.

There is no doubt that the pandemic has had a devastating impact on lives and the economy around the world. It also acted as a catalyst for changes that were likely to happen anyway. Companies adapting to remote work, changing the methodology of operation, are implementing cloud technology at a faster pace than ever before. This is often the only solution to maintain business continuity during the pandemic.

“In addition to security, scalability, availability and ease of migration of computing processes, the cloud can also bring about changes that employees will feel, making their roles in the company more flexible, productive and personalized,” says the representative of Colt Technology Services. However, according to Szczęch, for the adoption of the cloud to be really successful, enterprises will have to consider how they will integrate applications and data provided by different cloud providers, using both private and public networks.

“This is where the greatest advantage of the cloud comes into play, namely its interoperability, which is also the biggest obstacle to its implementation. Currently, the best approach is to implement a layer between the application and the interface of the cloud service along with well-defined user interfaces and communication protocols,” says Szczęch.

Traditional data centers are transforming in response to the continuous development of cloud technologies, edge computing, and advances in infrastructure and data hosting services. In addition, advances in savings in energy, cooling processes, telecommunications, artificial intelligence, SDN/NFV, hardware and software are transforming corporate data centers at an unprecedented pace.

The growing trend of using multiple clouds simultaneously, private and public, for companies to deploy their applications, forces organizations to modernize and expand their infrastructure to run business processes in a distributed environment. Migrating applications and processes to the cloud is becoming increasingly important. For this reason, working with a network connectivity partner that can provide high-performance, rapidly scalable, and highly secure cloud-connected environments is critical.

Cloud traffic is much more difficult to predict than locally hosted applications, so companies are increasingly using SD-WAN to increase their productivity and benefit from the cloud. Thanks to SD-WAN Multi-Cloud, enterprises can both manage the connection of their local resources to the WAN as well as direct private connectivity with applications in the IaaS/SaaS architecture. They can implement this connectivity with the help of multiple providers simultaneously, within a single infrastructure, and benefit from comprehensive security and SLAs for performance and availability.

“Therefore, all over Europe, key players on the market are now working closely together, providing new opportunities for companies looking to connect to public clouds,” says Szczęch.

The article is a guest post by Colt Technology Services