Healthcare organisations that rely on their IT infrastructures to run their operations, colocation data centre infrastructure is mission-critical.
For healthcare providers, data is critical. Prescriptions and medical records are examples of patient information that should be tracked for compliance purposes. Healthcare institutions, more than any other sector, must safeguard their IT infrastructure.
The rise of the public cloud has resulted in a surge in demand for colocation data center providers across the globe. This demand is divided into two categories: hyperscale customers taking advantage of the low energy prices, network connection, and tax benefits offered. The second kind of customers are replacing or supplementing their data centers and are drawn to the option to buy data center services on an ‘on demand’ basis.
Healthcare organisations that rely on their IT infrastructures to run their operations, colocation data centre infrastructure is mission-critical. Let’s look at five major reasons why the demand for colocation data centres is growing over time.
1. Healthcare organizations paradigm shift from legacy infrastructure to off-premises
Many healthcare organizations still use the legacy infrastructure with on-premise systems but now they’re facing operational problems, such as the regular need for hardware upgrades and complex and expensive maintenance. Another important factor is the lack of available space in the present infrastructure to expand the healthcare facilities and offer additional services to patients.
The pandemic has significantly boosted the number of patients who prefer teleconsultations. It is estimated that about 30% of the world’s stored data is related to healthcare, and this figure is expected to rise further with rapid advancements in medicine. Businesses highly depend on colocation services due to a lower number of standalone data centres in India.
Colocation providers can quickly offer extra network and physical data center capacity as needed to assist healthcare companies in meeting their rising needs. Global corporations who want to create a presence in the Indian market is collocating facilities. As a result, rising investment from global colocation service providers is expected to have an impact on the Indian data center market.
2. Improved network uptime with the redundancy of colocation service providers
Due to a lack of effective UPS and DC cooling infrastructure, on-premise data solutions may not necessarily have the best track record for uptime reliability. They also frequently lack the sophisticated analytics that allows current data centers to be so energy efficient. Many businesses are opting for a colocation facility to solve the problem of system downtime.
Throughout the year, data centers with 99.99999% uptime experience less than 3.15 seconds of downtime. When considering a colocation data centre service, the most promising feature for an enterprise to consider is uptime. According to Gartner’s survey, network downtime costs $5,600 per minute; this might be a catalyst for businesses to invest in more resilient colocation infrastructure. Colocation providers can use multisite resiliency and regional availability zones to redirect traffic and workloads to a new location. Thus, eliminating downtime on the user end.
3. Reduced operational costs and improved resource allocation
An Average enterprise data center costs $10 to $12 million per megawatt to build, which is a significant capital expenditure. This does not cease once the facility is operational; maintaining a data center on a daily basis demands considerable ongoing operating costs ranging from supporting infrastructure to a specialized IT workforce to assure prolonged uptime.
Companies opting for colocation data centers can focus on research and development of new products and expanding their business This can also free up a sizable amount of time the IT department spends monitoring and troubleshooting the on-premise system.
Healthcare enterprises in India looking to expand their operations and research facility will save huge space and substantial amounts of money by leasing a space for their data center needs through a colocation service provider.
4. Colocation data centers provide a wide range of connectivity options
India’s colocation data center sector saw a record absorption of 102 MW as Covid-19 drove an unprecedented demand for internet connectivity in 2020.
Extensive connection is a fundamental feature of colocation, and it is one of the primary causes why businesses consider data center migration rather than establishing their own private facility. Healthcare businesses may achieve a hybrid model from a single location with direct access to different cloud providers if they choose the proper colocation partner.
The appropriate colocation provider provides seamless connectivity choices, such as the flexibility to bring any carrier into the data center without incurring exorbitant cross-connect fees and providing professional network architectural guidance.
5. Risk minimization through enhanced security compliance
Many companies such as healthcare IT providers, hospitals, banks stores and handle massive amounts of sensitive data that hackers target for theft or exploitation, ransomware, and DDoS attacks. Despite the legal obligation to secure and safeguard consumer data, security gives businesses a competitive edge by shielding their data from competitors. Colocation providers are responsible for security safeguards specified by legislation such as HIPAA (For healthcare data) and PCI (Payment card related data). Multiple security gates and advanced logical security mechanisms, such as biometric scanners, are used by colocation providers to ensure that only authorized personnel may physically access key data assets.
The pandemic has highlighted the urgent need to offer healthcare at a quick pace, whether it is tracking the virus’s progress, exchanging information on safety standards, teleconsultation or organizing vaccination campaigns. With lower standalone data center options in India, colocation service is the optimal solution for fast migrations.
Organizations around the globe are migrating to a colocation facility due to its significant benefits. Companies may reap considerable benefits from migration by creating a proper business strategy for data centers and selecting the optimum colocation provider based on their use cases and needs.
Source: Business World
