How India presents growth Opportunities for Hyperscale DCs

The Hyperscale Data Centre Market is expected to grow at a CAGR of approximately 3.38 per cent over the forecast period (2021 – 2026). With the recent outbreak of Covid-19 across the world, the demand for the data center has increased with strong buying by hyperscale companies and cloud platforms whereas there was a slowdown in spending by many enterprise users.

The construction and spending on hyperscale observed little to no effects of the pandemic as prominent operators such as Google and Microsoft kept up with their spending, the construction of new facilities observed various smaller supply chain issues.

For instance, in April 2020,  Facebook, Google, and Apple announced a slowing of construction of major new data centers in the U.S. and Europe. This is because of the scarcity of other components of the supply chain like fiber optics, batteries, and racks, added a Mordor Intelligence report.

In order to make sure that people are well versed in the current and future state of the technology industry, W.Media is hosting a digital event ‘Fibre Infrastructure today and tomorrow in Hyperscale Data Centres’ co-hosted by AFL Hyperscale, the industry leader in data center cabling and connectivity to discuss the latest developments and growth opportunities in the hyperscale data center industry.

The event will consist of ‘Fireside Chat: Smart Fibre Physical Infrastructure for Data Centers and two panel discussions, namely ‘The Explosion of Hyperscale Data Centers – A look from the edge of Business Perspective’ and ‘Advancements in Fiber Infrastructure shaping the Hyperscale Data Centers of tomorrow.’

The event will consist of technology experts Steve Althoff, President, AFL Hyperscale, Robert Dennelly, Director Of Solutions Engineering, AFL Hyperscale, Nikhil Rathi, Founder & CEO, Web Werks Data Centres India Pvt Ltd, Saandeep V Dandekarr, Senior Director, NTT GDC and Cloud Infrastructure, India, Ashish Dandekar, Council Member, Gerson Lehrman Group, N. K. Singh, Founder & CEO, Data Center Guru, Gaurav Singh, Head Product & Solutions, Nxtra by Airtel, Nitin Jadhav, EVP & Head Solution Engineering, Yotta Infrastructure and Sreejith G, VP- Data centre Operations, STT GDC India.

“Digital growth and acceleration are here to stay and grow in India. Hyperscale data centers are exceptionally agile to manage the volume of data, compute, and storage services they process, with further capabilities of scalability and energy efficiency. Hyperscale DCs will be a preferred facility for most companies,” Nikhil Rathi – Founder & CEO Web Werks Data Centers.

“We are entering a new age of the digital revolution centered around augmented reality, machine learning, streaming videos, and 5G networks.  To empower these exciting new applications, fiber optic technology will play a critical role in transporting digital data in real-time to change the world in which we live,” said Robert Dennelly, Director Of Solutions Engineering, AFL Hyperscale.

“Data Centre Managers can improve their fibre infrastructure by focusing on high fibre count (HFC) solutions that give them more flexibility, drive reliability, and are more cost effective on a per fibre basis.  HFC solutions come in the form of both cable and connectivity.  It’s good to have a fibre optic cable with a lot of fibres, but if you don’t have a connectivity solution to integrate this, then one is not unleashing the complete value proposition of the HFC cables,” said Steve Althoff, President, AFL Hyperscale.

He further explained that a true HFC solution becomes are “entire package” of cable, specially designed frames to manage and route the large number of fibres, and HFC connectors such as MPOs.  There are multiple varieties of HFC cables, but one needs to be careful in which ones they choose.  The actual features of the cables in the industry vary vastly such as in OD (outside diameter,) ease of use (i.e.: handling & splicing,) and jacket performance.

There’s one cable available in the market place referred to as “WTC” (Wrapping Tube Cable) with SWR (Spider Web Ribbon.)  The SWR is designed in a way that provides some of the smallest packaging in the industry.  The ribbon bundles are joined intermittently such that they can be compacted so tightly to provide the highest fibre count cables at the smallest size.  The HFC cables can be preterminated to eliminate splicing in the field and insure the highest level of reliability.

“Fibre Optic cables are like arteries & veins of Data Center which carries data from one device to another and any clogging or break can paralyse part or bring down the whole services on Data Center down. Hence, it is very necessary to have right kind of Optic Fibre cable to support specific network technology for desired reliability & effectiveness,” said N. K. Singh, Founder & CEO, Data Center Guru.

“Since the evolution of optic fibre technology, there has been no going back.  Throughputs from Kbps to Gbps using OFC were always on the rise since the past 3 decades of commercial operations.  I see a huge scope of further throughput improvements upto a few Pbps using optic fibre communication systems apart from other widespread application of this multifacet technology for medicine, space, robotics,” said Ashish Dandekar, Council Member, Gerson Lehrman Group.

The report further explained that this reality has driven the rise of hyperscale data centers, which are a super-sized version of the mission-critical facilities that consist of the servers powering the Internet. Increasing cloud workloads have influenced companies like Amazon Web Services, Google, Microsoft, Facebook, and Apple to invest huge sums, around USD 1 billion to USD 3 billion, in a single campus to bring out the utmost efficiency.

The upsurge of hyperscale computing is all about businesses and their association with their data and IT operations. Companies/enterprises do not want to spend millions of dollars to build and operate a data center.

Some of the key drivers that are directly influencing the hyperscale data center growth are cloud computing, software platforms, social media, and content delivery. Social media has evolved to be a powerful tool, with over 2.28 billion users worldwide, generating volumes of data in the form of blogs, tweets, updates, images, and videos.

According to Cisco Systems, the global IP data traffic increased from 96,054 petabytes per month in 2016 to 150,910 petabytes per month in 2018 and is anticipated to reach 278,108 petabytes per month by 2021.

Further, the growing volume of Big Data across the business ecosystem is gaining maturity. A recent study by Accenture in May 2018 stated that 79 per cent of enterprise executives agreed that companies that do not embrace Big Data would lose their competitive position and are expected to face extinction. Currently, 83 per cent of enterprises pursue Big Data projects to seize a competitive edge.

Growth of Hyperscale DC in India

Indian data center colocation services is one of the fastest growing markets in the world largely driven by demand for colocation services from hyperscale cloud segment, OTT players, and content providers. The demand for hyperscale data center capacity has been growing at a good pace in India for the last couple of years, a Research and Markets report added.

The report further explained that the growth is attributed to multiple factors, such as enterprises moving their IT infrastructure to the public cloud, high consumer demand for app-based/OTT services running on the cloud, and rapid increase in internet data consumption. In addition, the government’s mandate on data localisation is encouraging the public cloud providers and big tech companies to host their data in the data centers situated within India. Hence, it is also contributing toward the demand for hyperscale data center colocation.

While hyperscale demand is expected to drive the majority of data center colocation growth in the coming years, enterprise/retail demand from BFSI and IT verticals will drive a sustained contribution to the growth of data center colocation market in India. Enterprises are shifting from their captive establishment to colocation data centers to reduce capital expenditure, achieve higher operational efficiencies, and leverage state-of-the-art infrastructures of colocation facilities. The outbreak of COVID-19 has further strengthened enterprise movement from captive data centers to colocation facilities to ensure business continuity.