Intelligent Data Centres Issue 09 | Page 20

DATA CENTRE PREDICTIONS 65%). Six out of 10 (62%) IT decision- makers globally and over half (53%) in the UK, are utilising virtual connections to support these growth plans. Key findings: The GXI Vol. 3 delivers insights by tracking, measuring and forecasting growth in interconnection bandwidth – the total capacity provisioned to privately and directly exchange traffic, with a diverse set of partners and providers, at distributed IT exchange points inside carrier-neutral colocation data centres. The GXI finds: The ability to exchange large volumes of data through interconnection is essential to compete in the digital economy • In response to rapidly growing volumes of data, enterprise consumption of interconnection bandwidth will grow at a 64% CAGR globally, outpacing other forms of business data exchange. This is due to be even higher for EMEA, with consumption growing at a 67% CAGR, leading enterprises to account for 60% of total interconnection bandwidth in 2022. And, by 2022, London alone will account for over a third (34%) of European traffic, with leading European cities – Frankfurt, London, Amsterdam and Paris – together accounting for almost 78% of European traffic. • To manage increasing volumes of data, enterprises are on average deploying in nine locations, with a total of 340 interconnections to networks clouds and business partners. The survey shines more light on this – IT decision-makers in the UK are utilising interconnection to connect to other enterprises (20%), network service providers (23%) and cloud service providers (39%). • The independent survey found that over a third (34%) of IT decision-makers in the UK, believe interconnection can help their business to gain competitive advantage within the marketplace. This assertion was true for almost half (46%) of global IT decision-makers and for four out of 10 (39%) IT decision-makers in EMEA. 20 Issue 09 Distance is the biggest performance killer for digital business • Deploying direct, private connections at the Edge propels both application performance and user experience. • Today’s latency-sensitive workloads require response times ranging from <60 to <20 milliseconds, forcing IT infrastructure closer to the points of consumption (the Edge). • According to the survey, a quarter (25%) of IT decision-makers in the UK are using interconnection to increase speed of connectivity. This compares to a finding of almost a third (31%) in EMEA and over a third (34%) globally. To add to this, six out of 10 (60%) IT decision-makers in the UK are using interconnection to improve security and half (50%) are using it to reduce the cost of connectivity. Leading businesses are gaining competitive advantage using a combination of key interconnection deployment models: • Interconnecting to multiple network providers across multiple Edge locations is the most prominent use case for interconnection bandwidth and is expected to grow 4x by 2022. According to the survey, optimising the performance of networks is a key priority for almost half (46%) of IT decision-makers in the UK. • Interconnecting to multiple clouds and IT services across multiple Edge locations and cloud regions represents the next largest and fastest use of interconnection bandwidth and is predicted to grow 13x by 2022. The move to multi-cloud strategies is cited by respondents to the survey as a priority for over a third (36%) of IT decision-makers in the UK. • Interconnecting to digital business partners for financial services, content and digital media and supply chain integration makes up the remainder of interconnection bandwidth use cases and is forecasted to grow 5x by 2022. ◊ INTERCONNECTING TO MULTIPLE CLOUDS AND IT SERVICES ACROSS MULTIPLE EDGE LOCATIONS AND CLOUD REGIONS REPRESENTS THE NEXT LARGEST AND FASTEST USE OF INTERCONNECTION BANDWIDTH AND IS PREDICTED TO GROW 13X BY 2022. www.intelligentdatacentres.com