The future of data centers in a post-covid-19 world

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The world hasn’t seen a public health crisis as severe as the 1918 Spanish flu pandemic, which resulted in massive economic and social disruption. The virus’s suppression efforts have nearly brought the world economy to a halt, affecting many elements of people’s and businesses’ daily lives.

The pandemic has surely accelerated digital transformation. Even after the pandemic, the prevalence of remote work will continue to accelerate cloud capabilities in 2021. Whether it’s more IT solutions for a flexible workforce, greater data stores to drive the expansion of online commerce, or resilient IT systems to manage any future healthcare crises, companies will look to prepare for a new normal.

Here are five reasons why COVID-19 is preparing the ground for a new era of cloud computing:

  • Demand for cloud data center services is accelerating:

Hyperscalers are having a busy time as the stay-at-home economy drives up demand for cloud services. According to UN-ILO estimates, full or partial workplace closures have affected four-fifths (81%) of the world’s population.

Simply put, hyperscalers aim for data center efficiency. Despite a 550 percent rise in computing volume, according to a recent study performed by Eric Massanet of UC Santa Barbara, the amount of energy needed by data centers increased by only 6% between 2010 and 2018. Much of this progress can be attributed to hyperscale data centers. The connection is evident: the higher the share of IT infrastructure controlled by hyperscalers, the more demand, and dependence on data centers.

  • Growing reliance on data center automation:

COVID-19 has accelerated the adoption of data center automation for many enterprises keen to decrease the risk of disease transmission, whether on-premises or in colocation. 

In the post-COVID world, this more hands-off approach toward hardware will promote an increase in private cloud and managed service models. The benefits of having someone else worry about maintaining the physical equipment that supports their operations will become increasingly apparent to CIOs.

  • Rapid development in data centers:

Data centers are abandoning traditional construction models in favor of innovative technologies to gain a competitive advantage and ensure the highest level of reliability possible. Companies increasingly want highly scalable data centers that provide in-depth analysis, improved management, disaster recovery, and fault tolerance.

By preventing disruptions caused by the failure point, Uptime Institute Tier 3+ certified data centers can continue to operate without interruption even if one or more system components fail. A fault-tolerant data center can be helpful in a disaster recovery strategy since it can backup components in the cloud and quickly restore critical systems, even if IT infrastructure is destroyed by natural or industrial disasters.

  • Hybrid cloud is the way to go:

Hybrid cloud enables businesses to work with a flexible cloud model that caters to various workgroups. This type of cloud allows for better data and IT administration, resulting in higher efficiency and production.

In the post-Covid-19 environment, businesses are recalibrating their plans to get the most out of the cloud and achieve a competitive advantage. Hybrid cloud services are critical for scaling up efforts, sustaining current operations, and preparing for future challenges.

  • Exploring managed services:

In such times of crisis, businesses require a high level of agility and reliability. Companies are turning to outsourced managed service providers since it has become increasingly challenging to access the data centers. While managing IT infrastructure remotely is difficult for IT staff, they rely on colocation hyperscale providers for network optimization, installations, managed cloud and security services.

Businesses will need to understand their need to use managed services to continue assisting their IT teams and focus on business continuity, processes, and tools to keep their employees safe and productive, even after Covid-19.

How Can UnityOne Be Beneficial For You?

It’s becoming increasingly clear that the world after Covid-19 will never be the same. Instead, it will continue to evolve and transform to benefit the global economy, and data centers and the cloud will undoubtedly play a crucial role.

With UnityOne, you can access and manage your bare-metal servers, networking devices, private cloud, and public cloud, securely access your physical or virtual assets and manage them in an auditable, repeatable, and systematic manner. You can also ensure optimal utilization of your multicloud resources with real-time monitoring statistics.

Visit the website and get a better insight into what else UnityOne has got in store; sign up for a free trial today.