Data centers and cloud: working together to power the future

Let's get one thing straight right out of the gate: there is no ‘cloud versus data center.’ It's a false dichotomy. The reality is that cloud and data centers are critical parts of the digital infrastructure. More than that, their relationship is one of symbiosis. Advances in data center technology (think high-speed connectivity, efficient power and more) boost the effectiveness of the cloud, and vice versa. This synergy has the potential to help clients fuel limitless future product innovation and service optimization for their customers.

From the start, the cloud seemed like a simpler, lower cost (more on that in a bit) alternative to managing on-prem infrastructure. But as data and compute demand has grown, so too has the realization that organizations need more flexibility than a ‘cloud-only’ strategy can provide. It's here, in particular, that colocation data centers still lead the way.

For one, cloud providers are, by far, some of the largest consumers of colocation data center services and solutions. That means if data center clients need to operate a portion of their workloads in the cloud (that is, through hybrid architectures), data centers have a unique opportunity to facilitate better, faster and cheaper methods for connecting clients, partners and customers to the cloud. This means that both data center and cloud clients have access to better solutions and services through by using both.

But what does that look like in practice? How do data centers help their clients make the most of hybrid architectures?

There are a few factors at play — namely interconnectivity, agility and accessibility.

Interconnectivity

The world is going through a non-stop data and compute binge. Take one single application, Netflix, for example. It's been estimated that each Netflix user streaming in HD used around 9.6GB of data per day