How are Edge Data Centres in India Helping Businesses Grow?

 

With the ever-expanding business landscape and the rapid surge in adoption of digital technologies, the role that data centres play in India is on a remarkable upswing. It is driven by enterprises going for application modernization, subscribing cloud native SaaS platforms, to secure and sustain their growth journey amidst rising competition while progressively improving operational efficiency. As businesses continue to adopt and integrate high performance computing, big data analytics, artificial intelligence, the volume of data generated is growing exponentially and with it the need to aggregate, store and analyse it has become compelling and unavoidable.

 

In this era of digital transformation, data and its secure residency and real-time analysis for actionable insight has emerged as a pivotal asset for businesses of all sizes and industries. From e-commerce and finance to healthcare and manufacturing, organizations are looking for data-driven insights to make informed decisions, optimize supply chain workflows, and stay competitive in the global marketplace. As a result, the need for secure, scalable, and efficient data centre colocation has become more pronounced than ever before.

 

In this context, Core data centres owing to their criticality have seen enormous growth over the last few years, with the total 3rd party data centre capacity close to touch 1GW. Much of this capacity however is restricted to the Top 10 cities. Digital adoption across consumers and enterprises This makes the B2C and B2B engagements around cloud and content in demand pockets outside of the existing data centre hubs and especially in Tier 2/3 cities suboptimal and with significant room for improvement both in terms of end user experience and consequent digital adoption velocity. This gap is effectively bridged with Edge data centres which on hand can be replicas of core data centres, but with lower form factor, lower capacity but purpose built for similar uptime performance to support critical applications and workloads as larger data centres and classify as regional data centres/infrastructure edge. On the other hand, the edge data centres increasingly can be small, scalable and software defined at access and aggregation sites. Positioned strategically at the periphery of networks, these data centres both at the regional level, aggregation level, near edge and far edge provide all stakeholders including businesses, local governments and consumers expedited and secure access to critical data and applications enabling a multitude of traditional and emerging using cases.

 

In this blog, we will understand in detail how Edge data centres are helping businesses grow.

 

Edge Data Centres Helping Businesses Chart New Growth Paths

As per Uptime, globally, the top factors driving the selection of edge locations for enterprises include proximity to existing and prospective customers, proximity to interconnection facilities, proximity to branch offices and industrial/manufacturing locations and to an extent enabling remote employees and resources.

 

Enterprise applications, online gaming and streaming content hosted in edge data centres provide better user experience because of physical proximity and simultaneously make service delivery costs efficient by avoidance of long network travel paths for data For cloud providers and CDNs, infrastructure at edge data centres provides the wherewithal to run applications at the network edge extending opportunities for both public/private clouds , content at the intersection of edge computing and networks

 

Emerging proximity-based use cases are driven by the steady advent of the metaverse, VR and AR applications where edge computing holds promise in terms of supporting the associated near user infrastructure requirements and delivering the requisite user experience in this evolving ecosystem. Software defined vehicles and autonomous vehicles are another emerging area where edge computing enhances the efficiency, safety, and capabilities of autonomous vehicles by enabling local data processing in a low latency environment. In addition, near real time healthcare, governance, security applications are steadily strengthening the requirements thesis for strong edge infrastructure.

 

In industrial environments, most systems reside on prem including SCADA and Manufacturing Execution Systems. The rapid sensorification , adoption of IoT and the attendant volume of data entails much higher processing requirements beyond the traditional architectures of industrial on prem computing. Industry 4.0 combined with increased requirements of data security and latency sensitivity, regulatory compliance and cost efficiency are driving the requirement of edge data centres focused on industrial setups.

 

The movement towards mass adoption of Artificial Intelligence across ecommerce, medical and security applications and generative AI models such as ChatGPT combines with IoT is further expected to drive a synergy between AI and edge computing that has the potential to reshape industries. The full potential of distributed AI systems is still largely unfathomed, but edge data centres will be pivotal to unlock AI for humanity decision-making, and optimized connectivity STT GDC India operates 28 data centres in India, located in ten different cities. These data centres cover a total area of 3.8 million square feet and can oversee over 300 MW of IT load.

 

Why Edge Colocation Data Centres in India are the Need of the Hour?

The exponential growth in data generation and consumption has necessitated a revaluation of colocation data centre infrastructure. In this context, the emergence of Edge Colocation Data Centres in India has become a pressing need due to the following reasons:

 

The Growth of Digital India

India has witnessed a digital revolution over the past decade, with an increasingly connected and tech-savvy population. This growth is attributed to the government's "Digital India" initiative and the proliferation of affordable smartphones and broadband internet access. As a result, businesses and individuals have become reliant on digital services. As the number of internet users with usage of wide spectrum of digital services, consumption of streaming applications and social media anytime and anywhere and online financial transactions of smallest denomination continues to surge unabated, the demand for better user experience with lower latency data access is all-time high.

 

Rising Data Consumption and IoT 

Proliferation of low-cost sensors attached to wide ranging devices of everyday use, and in industrial environments,  smart meters for electricity, water, piped natural gas and other utility services, CCTV and traffic cameras, some equipped with face recognition and numberplate reading, vehicular telemetry for smarter  and monitored transportation and many other IoT devices, coupled with continued growth in e-commerce transactions particularly in Tier2 and Tier3 cities, and adoption of telemedicine and online learning, has significantly increased data generation and its consumption. With 5G networks fast approaching saturated coverage pan India at globally unseen speeds, the pace of data generation and its storage and analytics is setto reach unprecedented levels. Increasingly new policies and regulations are expected to make data storage and processing localized instead of centralization in far off locations. Edge Data Centres will play a pivotal role in handling thedata influx at the "edge" of the network, closer to the end-users, reducing latency and improving user experience from satisfised to delighted.

 

Digital Transformation in Enterprises 

Businesses in India are racing to embrace digital transformation to uncover ways to stay competitive and realign business workflows to execute on it. This has become unignorable necessity for growth and expansion.  This involves modernization of legacy applications to make them cloud friendly and suited for cloud technologies like containerization, serverless computing and distributed clustering, and eventually migration to one or more cloud platform. Many enterprises have already made significant progress in this direction and gained proficiency to managed hybrid multi-cloud architectures. These initiatives are no longer solely HQ prerogative, with regional offices as passive audience.  Edge Data Centres offer the necessary collocation facilities with security and reliability for enterprises to host critical applications be assured of committed uptime with data safety and security.

 

Challenges in Data Sovereignty,Data Privacy and Data Localization

Data sovereignty, privacy and localization have gained unprecedented prominence and attention in India and globally as critical focus areas for digital information related individuals and organizations. The Indian government has introduced data localization laws, mandating personal data of Indian citizens be stored within the country. With effective governance, these legislative mandates are cascaded to state governments making the state capitals suited for Edge Data Centres rollout.

 

The strategic placement and infrastructure readiness of Edge Colocation Data Centres make them a vital component in India's journey toward a digitally empowered nation.

 

STT GDC India: Making Edge Data Centres Accessible for Business

For over a decade, STT GDC India, a leading data centre colocation service provider in India, has been offering high-quality data centre services. STT GDC India operates 28 data centres in India, located in ten different cities. These data centres cover a total area of 3.8 million square feet and can oversee over 300 MW of IT load.

 

We have constructed data centres in India and facilities nationwide to serve a diversified spectrum of customers from various industries. Our solutions include colocation, connectivity, and support services, making us an integrated service provider. Along with direct access to all major carriers, internet, and cloud service providers, some of the notable facilities at our data centres include –

 

• 100% Uptime
• Innovative fire detection and suppression system
• Hi-tech multilayered security Advanced Cooling Units
• Redundant Power Backup

 

Our data centres are also strategically positioned in and near significant cities that promote corporate growth across India. Mumbai, Delhi, Chennai, Hyderabad, Bengaluru, Pune, Kolkata, and Kochi are among our sites. STT GDC India is further extending its data centre infrastructure footprint to the larger Tier 2 cities to create an enhanced value proposition for customers and end users in line with the Digital India vision.

 

With the objective of #EnablingOurDigitalFuture together, STT GDC India provides world-class data centre solutions. We work towards offering the most reliable and secure data centre services, and we are honoured to have been recognised for our dedication to quality. If you are looking for quick and secure colocation data centres in India, look no further than STT GDC India. Our high-end data centre facilities, certified services, and award-winning customer service make us the perfect choice for all your data centre needs.

 

Source: https://www.jll.co.in/en/trends-and-insights/investor/india-data-centre-industry-capacity-to-triple

https://www.forbes.com/sites/tomcoughlin/2020/03/03/storage-and-compute-for-data-centers--the-edge/?sh=7719670028a3