While all of us in the information technology industry have different titles and responsibilities, we’re all in the business of solving problems. Not just solving them, but also anticipating them and implementing solutions in advance. Ever the optimist, I personally like to look at each problem as an opportunity.
As the threat of an economic slowdown looms and overall IT spending is forecasted to grow at a slower pace than last year, the following could be the next big learning opportunity for the industry: how to maintain the performance level and quality of service customers and end users are used to with a tighter budget.
Cloud adoption remains strong — and for good reason. The use of the cloud is a tried and tested way to global infrastructure solutions while keeping CapEx down.
However, a recent survey of IT decision makers published by CoreSite and CIO finds that cloud-only is not the optimal solution for CoreSite customers to meet their current and future connectivity needs. The 2022 State of the Data Center Report finds that IT leaders are moving top workloads from public cloud to colocation, citing stability, redundancy and uptime advantages as the biggest driving factors. The recent statistics on cloud adoption, paired with our findings that colocation maintains strong use, suggest that the largest opportunities for enterprises to improve performance and reduce costs lie in a hybrid approach. Businesses require options and the agility that only the use of colocation and cloud — both public and private — can provide.
The Open Cloud Exchange: Making a Hybrid Approach Easier
CoreSite has anticipated the opportunities that a hybrid approach offers for years. Over a decade ago, CoreSite introduced the Open Cloud Exchange®(OCX), an interconnection platform that simplifies network connectivity to cloud service providers. The OCX launched as a solution for enterprises that needed to improve performance of their hybrid applications and reduce cost of operations.
As we move further into the digital age, the CoreSite team has recognized several growing challenges our customers face, including:
- The need to continuously scale and deploy new applications across multiple markets
- The expectation to improve network performance and security while maintaining low latency
- The ability to reduce expensive cloud egress fees, so the IT budget can be reallocated to other business objectives
- The limited resources and expertise some organization have to effectively support their IT infrastructure while also achieving revenue generation goals
The anticipation of these challenges, as well as several others facing IT leaders today, led us to launch major enhancements to the OCX. The updates use automation to connect public and private cloud infrastructure, enabling customers to achieve the ideal hybrid end state more quickly and effectively.
The enhanced network services include automating critical functionality within AWS and Microsoft® Azure Cloud and enabling direct cloud-to-cloud communication capabilities on CoreSite’s fully managed virtual routers. In addition to simplifying the process of connecting cloud infrastructure, the OCX also helps IT managers mitigate cybersecurity risks. The platform offers private, trusted access to multiple clouds and makes recovery of data fast, safe and reliable, which is central to disaster recovery.
Open Cloud Exchange Available Across CoreSite’s Data Center Ecosystem
As we’ve already established, the need for IT managers to use colocation services remains steady. Making the OCX’s robust platform available to enterprise, cloud and network providers as part of a trusted interconnected partner ecosystem was a big part of our ongoing commitment to helping our customers anticipate and solve connectivity challenges. The OCX is available for customers of CoreSite’s 28 facilities across 11 markets.
The use of any of our strategically located colocation environments, paired with the public and private cloud onramp access that the OCX provides, makes meeting the challenge of maintaining the speed of service much easier.
For further proof, check out our case study demonstrating how this combination spelled success for a healthcare organization.
I would like nothing more than to tell you that the OCX will solve all of your upcoming challenges. While it may not help with that open position that you still need to fill, or your long list of action items, it can accelerate your digital success.
If you have any questions about OCX, send me a direct message or check out more information here.