Top trends in Data Centers/Colocation The top trend: Additional insights Growth of Infrastructure As mentioned before, intensi昀椀ed storms and weather conditions heighten and expand the risks to on-prem Data Centers that are Needs as AI, VR, aaS not protected su昀케ciently. Additionally, recent years have seen an increase in domestic terrorist incidents targeting elements of Use Grows the grid. You may be vulnerable to getting knocked o昀툀ine due to grid failure or brownouts. Generators can only last so long– in an As companies’ use of resource-intensive applications and extended period of outage, or if conditions compromise fuel avail- technologies expands, the infrastructure needs of the enterprise ability or delivery, your backup power may not last until a resolution will obviously grow. This is the second biggest gap between the is reached. This is why 2024 should also be a time to consider first and second trends in terms of response score in the survey, Redundancy and Disaster Recovery/ Power Grid Vulnerabilities. behind the Security Risks of IoT in the IoT technology Area. It’s probably the most obvious of the results. Proper planning, cost Colocation and private Data Centers are often built to be geo- containment, usage optimization, and adopting a Hybrid cloud graphically redundant, but learning how redundant they are and architecture all come together as IT leaders plan for future infra- planning your own business continuity is still critical. Finding your structure needs. own sustainable or alternative energy sources, or Data Centers that incorporate these, can be another way to mitigate these risks. As a bonus, this could also help your enterprise deliver on Cloud applications and development sustainability promises which will only be more relevant and in are driving IT departments. demand in 2024. Infrastructure needs to stay ahead. Automation of processes is about optimizing the time and effort of management resources, most easily done in a Software Defined Data Center (SDDC) environment. Simplified manage- An additional insight from our advisory partners is that the ment and reduced strain on administration resources inherently conversation about Data Centers/Colocation shouldn’t happen create value and soft-dollar savings for your IT team, but they can in a vacuum. They should be part of the broader conversation both create actual cost savings. about Hybrid and Multicloud architecture. UPSTACK © The 2024 Technology Trends Report | 7