India data center share projected to double in 18 months

Assocham organized the India Smart Data Centers and Cloud Infrastructure Summit 2020 today.

Speaking about the propellers for the data center growth, Kundan Ghodke, DGM - Sales & Marketing, GPX Global Systems Inc, listed some factors.

* Robust domestic data consumption
* Government push for digital economy
* Data localization
* Migration to cloud-based business operations
* Big Data and IoT to increase data center investment
* Increased adoption of converged and hyper-converged infrastructure platforms
* 5G deployment
* Pandemic effect.

CIOs and CTOs are looking for some hybrid solutions. There is some specific need. There is a requirement for hyperscale large data centers. Edge data centers are needed. They have key attributes of being carrier-neutral and service-neutral. They are connected to multiple cloud providers.

GPX data center campus offers carrier content cloud rich neutral ecosystem. This comprises of 12 carriers and 140+ ISPs, 8 CSPs, 9 CDNs, 4 IXPs and leading content providers with geographic proximity to subsea cables.

Jitesh Nair, Country Lead, Hybrid IT Services, HPE, said the next wave of digital transformation will be fueled by apps and data everywhere. The HPE GreenLake is the cloud comes to you. HPE GreenLake Central has containers, virtual machines, ML, Big Data, private cloud, data protection, networking, storage, compute, etc.

The HPE Ezmeral software portfolio provides security, cost control, ML ops, data fabric, container platform, etc. HPE helps accelerate your digital transformation. It has the expertise to help you define and architect the right mix of clouds for each one of your workloads, and data center. It has extensive cloud experience. There are automated services that monitor, operate and optimize the data center.

Yotta moving fast
Manish Israni, Executive VP and CIO, Yotta, said that India will have 460 million plus Internet users in India. Yotta is a managed data center provider in India that designs, builds and operates large-scale hyper-density data center parks. It is investing over $2 billion over the next seven years. There are DC parks in Delhi, Navi Mumbai and Chennai.

The Navi Mumbai data center has just gone live on 15th June, 2020. It is starting with over 30MW. Features include hyper scalable power, deep connectivity to users, and lot of other advantages. There is redundant fiber connectivity at Navi Mumbai.

The power infrastructure at the Yotta DC parks is a combination of grid utility feed plus solar power and natural gas-based co-generation. Yotta has utility power at HT 110/220 KV, solar plant of 40 MW, and co-generation natural gas power plant near the DC park.

The data center parks are single tenant and custom built with over 50MW. There is access to bulk green energy, and telcos. Yotta offers colocation and technology services.

33% cloud growth
Jatinder Singh Pabla, VP of Sales and Marketing, STT GDC, said the company has been building India's digital infrastructure. At least 33% CAGR cloud growth, and 23% CAGR colocation growth through the hybrid cloud are driving data and data center growth in India. 73% of the outsourcing pie is cloud. 50% of enterprise IT infrastructure is not outsourced. About 27% of the outsourcing pie is non-cloud.

The India cloud market will be $5 billion in the next few years. Hyperscalers are driving the data center growth in India. It is expected that there will be $1 trillion digital transactions will happen by 2025. There are data sovereignty regulations, and edge and device momentum as well. There are local and global investments for building DCs.

India's current data center share is at ~2-3% of the world. It is projected to double in 18 months. India is at ~300MC design capacity today. It will move to 1,000 MW in 3-4 years. USA added ~500 MW alone, last year. India today is the second largest DC market in Asia.

STT GDC India has been operating in India since 2004. It has 33% market share in the India colocation market. There are 16 DCs live in 8 cities, with 105MW IT load projected to double in three years. There is huge scope for growth in the future.

Sachin Waingankar, Assistant VP, Web Werks Data Center, said they have four DCs in India. There are expansion plans to all the metro cities and fiber landing locations, for instance, 10 MW in Delhi NCR and Bangalore, etc.

There are multiple redundant power supplies. These are UPS with N+N redundancy, automated switch to primary from backup sources, N+1 redundant electrical design and distribution, etc. There are various cooling and fire protection capabilities, as well. We are addressing hyperscale requirements and edge data centers. For security, there are 24x7 surveillance cameras with storage backup for 60 days. There are seven layers of robust security.

The network is carrier neutral, with best-in-class Internet service and uptime. There is 100Gbps+ subscriber capacity, with 50% reserved full BGP4. Web Werks is also hosting CDN edge servers in India, Dubai and the USA. There is bandwidth provision from all the major telcos, such as Airtel, Tata Comms, Tata Teleservices, Reliance Jio, Reliance Communications, Sify, etc.

Vimal Kaw, AVP, NTT Data Center Co. (Netmagic) added that India is just 2% of the global colocation market. We are doubling the speed today. There are edge data centers with a huge market. India has to gear up, as there are going to be design changes. Netmagic has presence in India. We are doubling our capacity every 3-5 years.

Netmagic is also looking at having their own solar plants. They have also seen a paradigm shift from 2012. We are buying our own land, and becoming even more mature. All hyperscalers have established their business in India. Digital and data localization initiatives are driving growth.

Varun Aggarwal, Director, Associated Chambers of Commerce & Industry of India (ASSOCHAM) was the organizer. Rishi Khanna was the moderator.