The data center market is growing significantly, and recent studies predict growth will continue. Over the next five years, Allied Market Research forecasts the colocation market growing from $25B to $51.8B. According to Forrester Research, the public cloud market will expand to $191B by 2020. This growth is tied to the fundamental idea that companies are comfortable with outsourcing their IT requirements to third party providers. But why? We’re in the middle of a blog series discussing five reasons why data center users lease their data center infrastructure. Our previous entries examined the benefits leasing provides to end users, both in economic savings and flexibility. Today, we focus on how leasing data center infrastructure provides scalability, both in services and capacity needed.

The Challenges with Predicting IT Infrastructure

Creating an effective IT strategy is challenging. Because most companies’ IT needs are always changing, their strategy must evolve. Changes to a company’s core business, acquisitions, and consolidation projects are several examples why predicting IT infrastructure needs is hard. While one solution fits the business today, it might require an alternative approach in future years. As companies face the burden of dealing with these changes, they are wise to consider the impact these changes make to the IT infrastructure designed to support them.

Another challenge for IT infrastructure needs is tied to new product features, as evidenced by Snapchat in 2013. Snapchat is a social media software allowing users to send pictures and videos with captions to one another, and these messages are only accessible once and for a few seconds. In late 2013, Snapchat introduced their “Story” feature, allowing user’s snaps from that day to be compiled into one long slideshow. This feature became very popular, and is now Snapchat’s most frequently-used function. Introducing a new product feature like these creates hard to predict increases in user activity and IT demand. This is one of the reasons why companies value data center solutions allowing them to scale based on required load.

Why Scalability is Valuable to the Data Center User

Adjusting data center infrastructure to fit current business needs within a company owned facility can be a costly endeavor, another reason companies find valuable when leasing data center solutions. With a scalable option, companies are able to handle the unknowns quicker and more efficiently. Both colocation and cloud solutions provide data center users with a scalable solution designed to fit needs over time. With colocation, companies can plan a phased approach when using their infrastructure. This allows them to ease into their solution over a period of time. Cloud provides greater scalability, allowing a company to lease infrastructure in smaller units of time. Cloud also provides an easier way to scale down, when IT load isn’t as heavy.

There are many opinions in the data center industry, but most can agree with this – things are always changing. With constant changes in business, companies are looking for opportunities to grow their IT infrastructure in a more efficient manner. This growth has found a home in colocation and cloud solutions, and we believe it will continue.