The demand for data centers is at an all-time high due to the rapid increase in data generation. The spike in data generation creates an overwhelming demand for data storage and processing, which has taken the data center industry to the edge. There is a bid to decrease the distance between the data generation points and the data centers. In the wake of this new age demand of edge computing, the choice of smaller data centers at multiple locations is being opted by various organizations.
The most interesting development with edge data centers has been the Containerized data centers, which is a perfect fit, meeting all the new-age demands of an organization. It is being highly adopted because it is portable, quick to install, scalable, and is equipped with servers that can function at any given point in time, regardless of location, thus steering the market players to manufacture servers compatible with containerized data centers. With its plug-and-play functions, they offer flexibility and also give the end user an option to deploy multiple containerized data centers and increase the data center capacity as per individual requirements.
Containerized data center market in North America
In 2017, the Containerized Data Center (CDC) market was valued at USD 4.78 billion globally, which is expected to reach to USD 18.64 billion by 2023 at a CAGR of 25.46% (during 2018-2023). North America is one of the first regions to adopt this technology and is also the largest market for CDC with 38.2% of the world market share in 2017. Giants like Microsoft, Google and Amazon realized this technology as the need of the hour and have already deployed their containerized data centers around the world. Microsoft has taken the edge technology a step forward by immersing its edge data center in the sea with a pilot project (Natick).
The affinity for growth, high technological awareness, and the focus on cost-effectively scalable models have driven the market growth for CDC in the United States, which has been strong and rising for a few years now.
Reasons for the increase in demand for Containerized data centers
1. Scalability
More than 40% of the organizations struggled with scalability options of the conventional data centers. Scalability is required by the organizations to meet their capacity-on-demand by adding building blocks to their data centers as and when required and an option to pay-as-you-grow. This helps them to increase operating efficiency and spreads the capital expenditure costs across a time interval. The organizations no longer need to forecast their storage needs for a decade or so and can scale with a decision in just a few months.
2. Mobility
The unique design of CDC allows it to be ported very easily, making it advantageous and secure during disaster recovery. Due to this quality, many organizations have also deployed CDC to provide computing power in the areas affected by a calamity, as disaster recovery is a growing and prime revenue-generating sector.
3. Temporary capacity enhancement
CDC can be deployed to manage additional loads without disturbing the core data center providing temporary capacity enhancement and high-performance computing. This serves as a great practical benefit for the organizations and thus increases the market for CDC. Also, these compact and new-gen data centers in a box are said to be delivering better results by consuming a fraction of power, urging the companies to deploy them to explore and experiment with their potential.
Multiple factors like portability, cost-effectiveness, and high-efficiency are driving the market for CDC. Edge computing and the increased data creation have enlarged the demand for data centers, and are steering the investment in data center market upwards. The organizations are also opting for a more reliable and scalable option in form of CDC.
CDC is offering next-gen features, which meet the immediate requirements of the organization, thus the demand for it is expected to keep growing for some time.
And not just United States, the promising and evolving markets of countries like Brazil and India that are in the phase of growth and penetration, and are looking for scalable and cost-efficient methods, have started showing an affinity for containerized data centers.
References
https://www.mordorintelligence.com/industry-reports/containerized-data-center-market
https://www.apnews.com/9273cbd102804da48e71d1d50dc69d40
