In an industry where bigger is generally better, it’s a tough world out there for smaller facilities, often deemed the underdogs of the data centre space. Here, Epsilon co-founder and CEO Jerzy Szlosarek explores some growth strategies to help out the little guys.

In the data centre market, ‘size does matter.’ As the market becomes oversaturated with large data centres, smaller data centre operators have to find a way to differentiate their offering. It is no longer enough to compete on price alone.

There is a huge opportunity for operators who can add value to their customers outside of the data centre. By offering customers a variety of connectivity options and access to an interconnected network, smaller operators can grow in a market dominated by big players and make their own transformation a success.

Small to medium sized data centre operators are competing in a market that is cloud-centric, hyperconnected, and global. They are competing with entire ecosystems of connected data centre hubs and managing clients that are increasingly looking for more value adds.

The opportunity is in finding new growth and creating loyalty in a market that has a growing number of data centre options.

It can be difficult for small to medium data centre operators to differentiate their offering in a crowded market where competitors offer a similar set of solutions. With new data centre interconnect ecosystems entering the market, smaller data centre operators cannot continue to compete on price alone.

They must make a move to grow their profitability and monetise the network or face being overshadowed by the larger players.

Networking transformation with SDN

The good news is that Software-Defined Networking (SDN) has made the network automated and programmable.

With an agile self-service SDN platform, smaller data centre operators gain new networking capabilities with access to a global interconnect fabric. It gives them on-demand connectivity to interconnected data centres and direct connection to the cloud.

The setup is fast, simple, and does not require the substantial upfront investment often associated with building and managing a global network.

Rather than piecing together a patchwork of services and allocating internal resources to DevOps, data centre operators can simply adopt an SDN platform and monetise new services from day one. There is no need to sink a lot of time and effort into building a solution that already exists. They can get all of the benefits without the hassle of development.

This way, small and medium-sized data centre operators can play a bigger role in supporting their customers’ hybrid IT strategy. They can easily leverage the SDN platform to instantly turn up connectivity between data centres globally and directly connect their customers to an array of public cloud services.

At the same time, they can focus on expanding their data centre footprint while putting more resources towards innovating their primary business.

Data centre operators need a simple way to move beyond their traditional services and offer their customers solutions that can move at the speed of the cloud.

One of the fastest ways to do that is to white label an SDN platform. They can adopt the platform to immediately offer a suite of connectivity services to support customers who are constantly looking for ways to grow their business to serve end users within metro areas and across the globe.

Competing with giants

With an SDN-enabled network fabric, data centres can transform into global cloud and interconnect hubs that never stop evolving.

New connectivity services and partners are continually being added on the SDN platform to support the ever-growing demand for hybrid infrastructure. It is about incorporating new flexibility, agility, and speed to a traditionally asset-heavy business model.

Once data centre operators white label an SDN platform, they will grow their capabilities along with it to offer diverse connectivity services to their customers. 

Data centre operators that incorporate SDN into their offerings are ready to better support enterprise demands for flexibility, agility, and speed. It is a simple way to take networking to a new level and compete in the saturated market of the data centre world.

When competing with giants, small to medium data centre operators must play to their own strength and compliment it with new capabilities. They must undergo their own digital transformation to support an increasingly global enterprise customer base.