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> White Paper | Best Practices in Digital Transformation
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uThe transition from colocation towards IT and cloud based service
models and is rarely straightforward or the same journey between
dierent companies. It is made more complicated by three factors:
1. The means of oering IT resources and services will vary. For
larger MTDC companies a branded delivery model will be
developed in-house. For MTDCs without this level of expertise
or resource, services can be developed through partnerships,
through mutually beneficial commercial arrangements (oering
space in return for the capability to market and oer services),
through an ‘ecosystem’ or through other referral arrangements.
These arrangements are assisted by the fact that, outside the
larger cloud, internet and managed service providers, these
sectors rely on commercial MTDCs for data center space.
“Some of the systems that we manage are client owned, we treat
these are part of our own hosted systems in terms of the way we
govern their operation. Then we have cloud services – some of
which are contractually owned by clients and some by us and
simply resold. Across each service model we have varied delivery
methods – we tend to have a dedicated IT team for each contract
and for each major location. We have a strengthening anity
with cloud delivery and seek to deliver cost savings for clients by
ensuring we maximise the use of cloud systems that have proven to
reduce costs and maintain high service availability.” [IT services]
“We are looking to develop a more converged, networked and
ecient environment that will be able to meet the demands
of private and hybrid cloud, run software-defined with a clear
management and operational system. The enterprise data center
fights back.” [Financial sector]
Figure 4: Investment in IT & Cloud Services & Solutions 2015 & 2016:
% Sample of MTDCs
10%
0%
20%
30%
40%
50%
60%
70%
Continuing Investment in 2015 First time Investment in 2016
Source: DCD Census 2014 & DCD Solutions Survey 2016
55.4% 11.2%
Disaster Recovery
8.6%52.5%
Dedicated Hosting
5.6%
43.5%
Managed Services
13.2%
38.9%
Application Hosting
6.5%19.9%
Private Cloud
5.5%8.8%
Business Ecosystem
4.5%6.4%
WAN
7.9%13.2%
PAAS
5.4%
31.4%
IAAS
11.3%43.2%SAAS
12.6%44.6%ISP
Source: DCD Census 2014 & DCD Solutions Survey 2016
2014 2016
Figure 5: Main Method of Charging 2014 & 2016:
% Sample of Commercial MTDCs
22.4%
32.4%
40.7%
4.5%
20.6%
30.3%
37.9%
11.2%
0%
5%
10%
15%
20%
25%
30%
35%
40%
45%
Power Space or
racks
Detailed
pricing
Consumption
basis
2. The method by which MTDCs charge for their facilities
and services is in a state of flux. In enterprise MTDCs
servicing internal clients, there may not be charging
and this has always been given as a reason for slow
progress on energy eciency. While there is a move
to charging on the basis of consumption to compete
on a more level playing field with cloud, around half of
commercial MTDCs in the 2016 sample are still using
power, space or racks as the basis of charging. Usually
services or interconnect are added if/as used to the
basic facility charging model.
3. A number of criteria are built into the service level agreements
which determine what the commercial MTDC will provide to the
client. SLAs tend to be building in more criteria (and usually over
shorter periods of time). While most will deal with an agreed level
of availability for service and with power provision, there are a
range of other issues. This again will add to the complexity of
managing a MTDC and keeping it profitable. u