Is Cloudification the Best Bet Forward?

As enterprises’ needs graduate from dedicated hosting to hybrid and public clouds, the third-party data centers are presented with a potentially large opportunity

The third-party data center services market, historically dominated by the large telcos in India, is today faced with a curious mix of opportunities and challenges. As businesses look at their internet presence no longer as a hygiene factor but as a key business enabler and accelerator, the demand for third-party internet data centers is very much on the rise. On the other hand, new sets of players are emerging to cater to the changing IT delivery needs of enterprises.

Internet hosting, however, is only a part of third-party providers’ offerings. The data centers offer a range of hosting services to large enterprises as well as small and medium businesses. These range from dedicated hosting, disaster recovery, backup, cloud-centric offerings and so on.

The market dynamics, which remained quite stable and predictable for many years before, however, have been witnessing new winds of change, primarily led by a somewhat rapid development of the cloud paradigm as well as its acceptance. Global IT behemoths including Microsoft and IBM have significantly and strategically upped their focus on cloud, after players like Amazon Web Services (AWS) and Google made their early cloud gains.

Key players

While the large telecom service providers like Reliance Communications and Tata Communications continue to dominate the landscape, providers like Netmagic, Sify, CtrlS, Trimax, Cyquator and NxtGen have also gained considerable momentum. There also are smaller players like Net4India and Spectranet that are more focused on the internet hosting services segment. Here’s a quick summary of some of the key players:

A part of India’s fourth

Reliance IDC: