Recent Telehouse research showed that already more than two-thirds of UK IT decision-makers have implemented a strategy for edge.
The outfit thinks that as we move into 2022, and 5G is deployed more widely, we will see even greater demand for edge data centres and an increase in acquisitions, mergers and the launch of new data centres across the UK.
Edge computing, delivered from this fast-emerging network will provide the capacity to support smart cities, and a latency of less than one millisecond.
The report said that despite challenges from hyperscalers, the colocation market will continue to thrive in 2022. Telehouse research shows that 99 percent of UK enterprise IT decision-makers are using colocation, with 40 percent of enterprise IT infrastructure outsourced.
This is set to rise to 46 percent in five years’ time, with significant growth set to take place in 2022 as companies lay the foundations for edge computing and shift IT infrastructure from on-premise to colocation in response to remote and hybrid working models.
The report said that uptake will increase particularly in sectors such as financial services, which are under pressure to transform and migrate away from legacy infrastructure rapidly, enabling them to benefit from fast, secure and direct connections to cloud service providers while maintaining strong security.
Telehouse believes that rising data volumes and increasing demands for advanced technologies like artificial Intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) will force businesses to find ways to ingest and process data quicker and to do in a scalable and flexible cloud environment. Greater focus will be placed on the route data takes and the number of connections it has, rather than its geographical home. Building connected ecosystems and low-latency connectivity with network and connectivity partners will be critical to success.
A third of enterprises already say growing data volumes is a serious problem, according to Telehouse’s Race to the Connected Future and this will rise further in 2022 as data demands increase. Businesses will continue to focus on unlocking and analysing data to increase agility, inform strategy, launch new services quickly and inform decision making for digital transformation., but increasing pressure on IT teams, many of whom are not data literate, will lead to rising levels of burnout across the sector.
Growing data volumes will also continue to drive the adoption of edge to deliver a more efficient way of moving and processing large volumes of data in real time.
Sustainable IT Infrastructure will become a mandatory requirement for most businesses in 2022, driven by pressure from customers, partners and increasing regulation. Reducing environmental footprint is already a top-five challenge and will be the second biggest challenge by 2030 according to Telehouse research. As a result, monitoring of the environmental footprint of IT operations will increase and steps taken to reduce carbon impact in 2022, particularly when it comes to infrastructure strategy.
Edge computing and colocation are already considered the most sustainable infrastructure models, and as more enterprises adopt hybrid and multi-cloud, adoption of colocation will rise as companies seek to offload sustainability responsibilities and reduce the carbon impact of cloud connectivity by connecting to multiple cloud services through a single, dedicated private connection from a data centre.
Mark Pestridge, Senior Director Customer Experience at Telehouse Europe said: “2021 was another significant year for IT Infrastructure, driven largely by the response to the pandemic. As things settle in 2022, the focus will move away from building infrastructure foundations, to tackling issues such as data growth and sustainability, which in turn will further drive the need for colocation. Having the right partner, to help future-proof and remove risk from IT infrastructure will be critical to success.”
