Intelligent Data Centres Issue 12 | Page 62

Equinix predicts hybrid multi-cloud, Artificial Intelligence, cybersecurity, data regulation and sustainability will be key factors influencing how organisations undergo Digital Transformation. quinix, the global interconnection and data centre company, has released its top five technology trend predictions for 2020 which point towards the critical Digital Transformation that organisations are making to lead in the new digital era. E Equinix’s expansive footprint across more than 50 global markets, and its position as a leading meeting and interconnection point for ecosystems of networks, clouds, enterprises and nearly 10,000 customers, give it a holistic lens to view critical digital infrastructure trends. Equinix’s 2020 technology trend predictions include: Distributed infrastructure and Edge Computing will accelerate hybrid multi-cloud adoption There is a seismic shift underway across many industries as businesses are embracing Edge Computing and hybrid multi-cloud architectures. Increasingly, businesses are moving computing from centralised data centres to a distributed infrastructure and towards the Edge, where data exchange and interconnection between businesses and cloud services are growing at an exponential rate. The advent of Edge Computing has also become a foundational enabler for other emerging technologies such as 5G mobile communications, which will allow Internet of Things (IoT) and other Edge devices to take advantage of faster connectivity to data and compute resources with single- digit-millisecond network latency. According to analyst firm, IDC, by 2023, more than 50% of new enterprise infrastructure deployments will be at the Edge rather than corporate data centres, up from less than 10% today. And by 2024, the number of apps at the Edge will increase 800%. The report says that in order to prepare, businesses must modernise IT to become virtualised, containerised and software- defined to support the Edge. And they should also consider new data centre partners that can bolster Edge build-out and prioritise infrastructure optimisation and application communication costs. As a result, in 2020, Equinix anticipates Edge Computing as a key driver in accelerating hybrid multi-cloud adoption across every business segment worldwide. The third annual Global Interconnection Index (GXI), a market study published by Equinix, estimates that between 2018 and 2022, private interconnection between enterprises and cloud and IT service providers will grow annually by 112%. The report predicts that traditional cloud computing architectures, which are highly centralised, will shift as enterprises look to extend cloud computing to the Edge to solve for challenges introduced by the Top five technology trends to impact the digital infrastructure landscape in 2020 62 Issue 12 www.intelligentdatacentres.com