The importance of hyperscale data centers

Hyperscale demand

Colocation data centers are evolving to meet the needs of hyperscale data centre operators by investing in and building new facilities.

The tremendous demand from these cloud service providers has led colocation data center operators to innovate quickly and build at scale for hyperscale purposes.

Companies with hyperscale needs are vital to the colocation data center industry’s growth as it’s the largest class of operators, it’s the type of data centre that’s associated with best-in-class service.

Hyperscale data center definition

The International Data Corp. (IDC) defines hyperscale data centers as:

Hyperscalers, as they’re also known, offer services from and operate in data centres associated with best-in-class performance and resource efficient facilities. It’s easy to see the need to build data centers of that scale when the popularity of the services offered by hyperscalers and the number of users are considered.

Global data centre traffic is projected to grow three-fold by 2021; 95% of that traffic will stem from cloud services and applications, according to Cisco.

There are a relatively small number of companies responsible for the bulk of that traffic with hyperscale needs too; Amazon Web Services, Google and Salesforce are among a group of 24 companies that dominate the hyperscale sector, according to Cisco.

Given the importance of internet companies with hyperscale needs, it’s easy to see why Colt DCS is currently building new hyperscale data centers in Mumbai and Frankfurt.