Phillip Lay
April 3, 2018

Cloud technologies are transforming how business is being done in Asia Pacific. With organizations across industries turning to cloud to cut costs, streamline operations and enhance services, the conversation among the region’s IT decision-makers has rapidly shifted from “why should I migrate?” to “how fast can I migrate?” This accelerating take-up follows a global trend: IDC estimates that customers will spend US$554 billion on cloud computing and related services in 2021, more than double the level of 2016.

As the cloud market matures, organizations are also starting to use services more strategically. They especially want to quickly scale their infrastructure capacity to manage the surges (‘peaks’) in information and transactional data generated by their digital products and services. To achieve this, the most advanced organizations are becoming more ‘inter-networked’ with ecosystems of network service providers (NSPs) and cloud service providers (CSPs). These connections are helping them access whatever cloud computing power they need, when they need it, for greater agility and cost-efficiency.

IT leaders must assess whether their company’s cloud-based IT infrastructure can take advantage of such approaches to realize the full and transformative potential of the cloud. In Asia Pacific, the process could also mean confronting some tough questions, such as:

What’s the fastest and most cost-effective way to expand our business from a base in Asia into North America and Europe?
How best can we connect cities to consume single or multi-cloud services as we expand globally?
How can we ensure high standards in reliability, security and governance as we migrate workloads to the cloud?
How can we balance cost and performance across the organization?

Leveraging ‘Interconnection Centers’

I’ve spent my career helping leading organizations in Asia Pacific build robust and profitable models for network distribution. As such, I was delighted to join global Data Centre giant Digital Realty earlier this month, because I am confident it is taking the right approach in helping Asia Pacific customers address all of these questions. Central to this is ensuring that its global network of Data Centres (over 180 across 4 continents) are highly interconnected.

Hands-on experience with customers has shown me how taking advantage of globally ubiquitous, on-demand interconnectivity can help businesses swiftly expand their regional and global footprints. This leaves them better positioned to compete and win in the digital era.

The key to this approach is having data centers that can become interconnection nodes for businesses as they grow. Rather than building their own interconnections, companies can use reliable, secure ‘interconnection centers’ or common platforms that are shared among ecosystems of NSPs, CSPs and supply chain partners.

These data centers also offer organizations the opportunity to simultaneously orchestrate sophisticated multi-cloud solutions across multiple locations. Companies that can diversify workloads across geographical locations using the most suitable cloud services for their needs will be well placed to fulfill their digital business strategies and control costs.

At the same time, these data centers connect enterprises with best-of-breed Information-as-a-Service, Platform-as-a-Service and Software-as-a-Service offerings to enhance the performance of their digital supply chains – wherever in the world those are located.

Join the digital center revolution

Becoming a digital enterprise is no longer simply about becoming more efficient. It is about operating effectively in a smarter world. One of the keys to achieving this is having a data center that’s part of a vibrant, connected digital ecosystem. This will help you integrate complex mixed-mode IT environments with multiple public and private clouds. It is also essential to being able to adjust computing power, storage and network capacity as required.

Digital Realty’s sophisticated data centres across the world and specifically in Singapore, Hong Kong, Australia and Japan for Asia Pacific, deliver this capability. Interconnected via dark fibre that leverages the existing Digital Realty ecosystem, they bring together carrier-neutral connectivity with a wide range of telecommunications providers, services providers and business partners in an open cross-connect model.

Digital Realty is also one of the founding committee members of Digital Center 2020. Supported by 7 industry leaders, including Cloud Service Providers, Internet Exchanges & SIs, DC2020's goal is to redefine the Data Center for the Fourth Industrial Revolution. Providing expert discussion, insight and knowledge through the open sharing of best practices on data center transformation. Everything from realising ROI from legacy IT and hybrid cloud migrations, to bypassing the public internet and providing secure, fast and seamless services to partners and customers.

Interconnectivity Driving Asia Growth