Infonetics Research: Service Providers Expand Data Center Offerings on Quest for New Revenue

CAMPBELL, Calif. -- (BUSINESS WIRE) -- A new data center study published in late December by market research firm Infonetics Research delves into operator plans for data center expansion, interconnection, physical servers, capacity, applications, virtualization, SAN and storage technologies, and expenditures.

For the report, Data Center Deployment Strategies: Global Service Provider Survey, Infonetics analysts interviewed 19 major telcos, cable operators, data center/content specialists, and colo providers that have data centers with 100 or more servers. Together the respondent operators represent a significant 20% of the world’s telecom carrier revenue and 20% of the world’s telecom capex and hail from North America, EMEA (Europe, Middle East, Africa), and Asia Pacific.

ANALYST NOTE

“Service providers are once again in expansion mode, but unlike in the late 1990s when the bandwidth rush was on, the focus this go-around is a quest for revenue. Service providers seeking to bolster their financial picture and gain a piece of the cloud service revenue pie are leveraging a captive customer base and expanding data center offerings to include virtualization technologies and even new networking facilities like Fibre Channel over Ethernet,” explains Sam Barnett, directing analyst for data center and cloud at Infonetics Research.

DATA CENTER SURVEY HIGHLIGHTS

• The average numbers of medium, large, and super size data centers owned by operators providers that offer data center and cloud services is growing over the next 2 years, with large and super sized data centers growing the most
• Virtualization and network convergence allows these operators to grow sustainably to meet the demand for cloud services
• The top 2 data center application strategies planned by respondents are 1) running applications on a fully virtualized infrastructure, and 2) replicating applications and data across data centers based on demand, such as is common with airline reservations systems
• The #1 data center interconnection strategy planned by service provider respondents is using multiple physically separate connections for physical protection
• Use of legacy data center interconnection (DCI) technologies, leased dark fiber, and SONET/SDH is slowing over the next 2 years, while wavelength, IP/MPLS, and Ethernet transport are increasing

RELATED / UPCOMING RESEARCH

Log in to Infonetics’ online portal (http://www.infonetics.com/login) to download report highlights, prospectuses, tables of contents, etc. (see DATA CENTER AND CLOUD).

• Latest Infonetics Data Center and Cloud research newsletter: http://bit.ly/ywLDDH
• Data center equipment market up 12%, F5 jumps past HP into the #2 spot behind Cisco
• Cisco closing gap with Brocade in SAN equipment segment; market up 2% in Q3
• Operators embracing cloud services in earnest, significantly expanding cloud offerings
• 4Q11 Data Center Network Equipment Market Share / Forecast (Mar. 5)
• 4Q11 SAN Equipment Market Share / Forecast (Mar. 12)
• 4Q11 Total Data Center and SAN Equipment Pivot (March 2012)
• Data Center Deployment Strategies: Global Service Provider Survey (2012)
• Data Center Deployment Strategies: North American Enterprise Survey (2012)
• Cloud Service Strategies: Global Service Provider Survey (2012)
• Cloud Service Strategies: North American Enterprise Survey (2012)

SALES

• Larry Howard, VP, Western NA, Asia, CALA: larry@infonetics.com, +1-408-583-3335
• Scott Coyne, Eastern NA, Texas, Midwest: scott@infonetics.com, +1-408-583-3395
• George Stojsavljevic, EMEA: george@infonetics.com, +44-755-488-1623
• Japan, Taiwan, Korea: http://www.infonetics.com/contact.asp

Infonetics Research is an international market research and consulting firm serving the communications industry since 1990. A leader in defining and tracking emerging and established technologies in all world regions, Infonetics helps clients plan, strategize, and compete more effectively.

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