The regional data center as a connectivity hub

Due to the rise of cloud computing, for many organisations the center of gravity of the IT environment has shifted from their own, on-premises data center to the cloud.

Due to the rise of cloud computing, for many organisations the center of gravity of the IT environment has shifted from their own, on-premises data center to the cloud. And not just one cloud but several. For now, these tend to belong to SaaS, PaaS and IaaS providers, plus private clouds in colocation data centers. But they are fast being supplemented by edge environments at the margins of the network. “In many cases, for reasons of latency and cost it is not desirable to bring data which is collected locally – for example by the fast-growing number of IoT devices – to a central cloud for further processing and analysis”, says NorthC COO Jarno Bloem. “For this reason, on-site and micro data centers will develop in which the data processing takes place close to the source.”

 

Analysing data in context

The more different clouds and micro data centers a company uses, the greater will be the need to analyse data from those different environments in context. Organisations increasingly recognise the value they can obtain from data. Combining different data sources yields new and better insights. However, this does first require physically bringing together data from different sources, and that is quite a challenge.

 

Physical node between central cloud and local edge applications

A physical node is needed where all that data from central clouds and local edge applications come together quickly and easily. The regional data center is perfectly suited to that role, provided it is a cloud and carrier-neutral data center. By this we mean a data center that works with a very wide spectrum of cloud providers and network suppliers, so that customers are free to choose which party they want to buy those services from. A cloud and carrier-neutral data center is essentially a connectivity hub where multiple cloud providers and network suppliers have a physical PoP (Point of Presence) or equipment. As such, it represents the hub in the ecosystem, with on the one hand the cloud environments of SaaS and IaaS providers and on the other the hyper-local data centers and servers dedicated to ‘computing at the edge’.

 

NorthC as a hub in the ecosystem

NorthC CEO Alexandra Schless says: “We have expressly chosen a strategy of providing regional connectivity hubs for organisations with our network of data centers. Through our presence in the different regions of the country and in combination with our Region Connect service, we offer customers a wide choice of network and cloud providers at each data center. This gives our customers access to private and public cloud services that can be part of a complete, hybrid solution. In view of the fast-growing quantity of data, fast, reliable and secure network connections are essential in order to make optimum use of applications that are located both in the cloud and in a dedicated environment in the data center and to extract as much value from data as possible.”