UK organisations reveal strong appetite for edge and accelerated cloud adoption following the pandemic
What is Edge Computing?
Edge computing refers to a distributed computing paradigm where data processing is performed near the data source or “edge” of the network, rather than relying solely on a centralised data-processing warehouse or cloud environment.
London, UK – 15 February 2021 – Nearly nine in ten (89%) UK IT decision-makers say that edge computing will be important to their business over the next ten years, according to new research commissioned by Telehouse International Corporation of Europe. This is despite only a quarter of organisations (26%) currently deploying edge computing, highlighting the desire to bring applications closer to data sources by 2030.
Edge is just one infrastructure area set to grow over the next decade, alongside cloud and a shift away from on-premise models. Three quarters expect the volume of data they manage to at least double over the next 10 years, impacting infrastructure requirements. Nearly two thirds (62%) say investment in data centre infrastructure will increase and over half (51%) plan to migrate applications to a hosted private or public cloud platform. Less than a quarter (24%) expect to be deploying on-premise infrastructure, with the average amount of infrastructure on-premise to fall from 54% today to 32%.
Organisations also expect to face a host of infrastructure challenges in 2030, including maintaining security and compliance (36%), reducing the environmental impact of IT infrastructure (30%) and selecting cost effective cloud solutions (27%). Cloud also topped the list of focus areas for the next ten years, cited by nearly half of IT decision-makers (44%), followed by cyber security (40%) and 5G (29%).
The Future of Edge Computing
Commenting on the findings, Mark Pestridge, Senior Customer Experience Director, Telehouse says: “It’s not surprising that appetite for edge computing is growing. It’s now more important than ever for businesses to store, access and analyse and access exponential levels of data at record speeds, and technologies like edge and cloud will be critical in enabling this. Ultimately, the key for success for organisations will be building the right infrastructure foundations and connectivity, so choosing the right partner will be critical.”
Covid-19 has also had a big impact on infrastructure strategy with 91% planning to make changes to their IT infrastructure following the pandemic. One in four say they will increase bandwidth/connectivity, while 38% say they will accelerate and shift more workloads to the cloud (38%) and over a third (34%) will increase capacity in the data centre.
Sue Daley, Associate Director, Technology & Innovation at techUK commented “As organisations begin to rebuild, recover and reinvent themselves, current digital and more transformative technologies, such as cloud, Edge and AI, are going to be key enablers for what comes next.
“The research indicates it is not the adoption of one single technology that will hold the key: the convergence of several innovative technologies will become increasingly important to businesses as they look for innovative and greener ways of working and doing business. The ability of organisations to scale up their adoption and use of these technologies is what will help to drive organisations forward.”
The need to reduce environmental footprint was also clear in the research, expected to be the second biggest challenge by 2030. The majority of IT decision-makers (86%) say sustainability is important in their IT infrastructure decision-making process, yet almost a third (32%) say they don’t currently monitor the environmental footprint of their IT operations.
The research “Vision 2030” surveyed 250 UK IT decision-makers to provide a vision for IT infrastructure in 2030, including challenges, opportunities and trends. Research was conducted by Censuswide to mark 30 years since Telehouse opened its first London data centre Telehouse North and became Europe’s first colocation provider. Download the full research report here.
About Telehouse
Telehouse is a leading global data centre service provider, bringing together more than 3,000 business partners including carriers, mobile and content providers, enterprises and financial services companies.
Established in 1989, Telehouse provides reliable, secure and flexible colocation, enabling organisations to accelerate speed to market and create business opportunities through fast, efficient and secure interconnections.
The Telehouse London Docklands campus is Europe’s most connected data centre campus. The organisation is a driving force for sustainability in the data centre industry and powers its data centres with electricity from 100% renewable sources. For more information visit: https://telehousewebsi.wpengine.com/
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