Colocation essentially involves customers housing their own equipment within our managed data centres. The decision to choose colocation is influenced by several key factors. Primarily, businesses are moving away from maintaining their private data centres, which can be costly and complex due to the need for up-to-date standards, certifications, and security measures. By opting for colocation, companies can leverage our facilities that provide the necessary space, power, cooling, and enhanced security, reducing their overhead and increasing efficiency.

Additionally, colocation serves as a first step towards adopting broader infrastructure services. Once in a colocation setup, customers often reconsider whether to transfer old equipment or upgrade to new technologies. This transition often leads to discussions about managed services, where we can not only supply the new equipment but also manage it. Services such as enhanced storage, backup solutions, and comprehensive managed service wraps are frequently integrated. So, colocation becomes much more than just space rental—it becomes a crucial part of the customer’s IT infrastructure strategy. This strategic flexibility and cost-effectiveness are what draw customers to colocation.

As a Product Manager, my primary goals over the next year revolve around ensuring our colocation facilities are available, assured, and agile. These principles are crucial as we aim to meet and exceed customer expectations in an evolving market.

Customer experience will be a key focus across our facilities as will enhancing power and cooling capabilities that we are able to offer our customers. As power consumption required by customers grows in line with density, this will involve upgrading our infrastructure to support high-density computing environments which is essential for attracting customers with advanced computing needs, such as those involved in AI, and high-performance computing. These sectors are rapidly growing and require facilities that can provide the necessary power and thermal management to operate efficiently.

Continuing to enhance and advertise our agility in how we offer services is another key goal. This means not only providing the physical space, power, and cooling but also integrating enhanced managed services and support.

By focusing on these areas, we aim to provide a colocation service that not only meets the current demands but is also future proofed against emerging technologies and market trends.