When we say hyperscale it immediately reminds us of something huge/enormous. However in the data center industry, hyperscale just doesn’t stand for quantum of space, but also for how optimally more equipment, higher power capacity, network abundance, near zero downtime and process maturity, can be accommodated and served to clients with mission critical nature of operations. Hyperscale data centers are known for their capability to offer robust, scalable infrastructure with measurable SLA. This kind of data center is usually operated by large service providers and therefore a hyperscale is less about just the size and better known for its exponential scalability in no time.

There’s no iota of doubt that the edge is the way forward to enable data ease of data availability and lower the latency. With next-generation IoT and virtual reality applications taking center stage, hyperscalers would play a further strategic role to fuel their growth in terms of capacity build and also reach. While we discuss about the hyperscale enterprises across industries, most of us tend to obliterate the fact that these are not just big names, rather these are the very platforms that deliver the requirements of millions of inquisitive customers who cling on to the hyperscalers to solve their myriad problems. In industries such as the ones categorized under SaaS, content based OTT players and creators of digital assets, this boils down to providing bits as innumerable smartphones, tablets, desktops etc.

There's no iot a of doubt that the edge is the way forward to enable data ease of data availability and lower the latency

Since the volume of these exist in direct correlation to where populations exist, it’s no wonder hyper scale data center providers are building availability zones in more population centers. Global public cloud players are increasing their “Local Zones” beyond Tier 1 cities. OTT and other real time data delivery platforms are also expanding their footprints and penetrating into Tier 2 & Tier 3 markets. Thats where they would need the presence of edge data centers. The transition that we are observing today, is from hyperscale monolithic data center providers to hyperscale data centers with edge child locations (hub and spoke)in tier 1 and tier 2 markets. The reason behind this is that these cities and their neighbourhoods are where the load of consumers of digital content are concentrated.

How Hyperscalers are shaping the Edge Strategy
It is evident that hyperscale providers and the customers they support are moving beyond just a handful of regional availability zones to deliver their digital services to a much larger consumer base covering wider geographies. The next five to ten years is going to be all about moving to the Edge and delivering. However, something that still is in the grey area is what kind of applications and use cases will require such a highly geographic distributed footprint? Also, how would application developers and content producers manage, scale, and make geographic resource allocation decisions in a fragmented construct?

Regardless of this, as the cloud and technology providers transition to a local-zone edge strategy, they will look to solve three logistical challenges:

1.Metro Diversity ­– Just as hyperscalers built their initial regional availability zones in tripod groups of three for resiliency, they will look to do the same in the metro or local availability zones into which they expand. This requires a minimum of three data centers in each market. It would require the data center partner with multiple facilities, as opposed to the single-location wholesale data centers.

2.Robust Network Connectivity – Local availability zones also need access to ample fiber networks and carrier neutral interconnection hubs in order to connect the nodes in that metro to one another, but also to link the local zone to those in other regions. Hyperscalers will seek to locate their local zones in metros that have a diversity of neutral interconnect hubs and fiber paths in and out of the metro. You can expect hyperscalers to gravitate toward a multi locale model.

3.Competitive Speed to Market – To meet demand, Hyperscalers would traditionally rely on a mix of their hub hyperscale facilities and spoke edge data center locations. Being hyperscale data centres they would have the wherewithal to facilitate local zone edge deployments with 5MW+ power and pull dark fibers the edge connecting their hub location. Therefore, existing enterprise data centers with meaningful capacity in tier 1 and tier 2 metros will provide an attractive proposition.

We can very much see the co-existence of Hyperscale Data Centers and Edge Data Centers and serving the larger need of the industry of taking data closer to the last mile user, without compromising on service quality and service availability.