Contributed by Giridhar L V, VMUnify

We have been working with Service Providers since the inception of the product, VMUnify, and have had a chance to talk to a wide spectrum of them. While some of them are big data centers (Tier III and above) with setups in multiple locations, there have been some who have converted a portion of their office or have rented a smaller office say about 200 to 400 sq.ft to setup their own small data centers.

My view is that the smaller Service Providers will stop setting up their own DCs and instead look at other options.

The first option is co-location. Basically, to use the space provided by bigger data centers and outsource the hardware, bandwidth and other management to the bigger data centers. In this way they can rely on the bigger DCs ability to get a better deal on the hardware, bandwidth and other costs involved in running of the data center. The smaller DCs will still have to manage the layers above the hardware including the hypervisor. This option is already being used by multiple small service providers.

The second option has come up with the advent of Amazon, Azure, Google, Softlayer, etc. In this option, the service providers need to no longer think about the hardware, the hypervisor layer etc... and can instead only focus on providing solutions based on a single or multiple VMs. The focus in this option is completely on the application that is being provided as well as other value added services like monitoring, support, patch management, etc.

My view is that even though we have some of the bigger DCs expanding their presence and companies like Amazon, Google, etc.expanding their global reach, the smaller service providers will continue to exist and thrive because of their last mile connect to their customers, they'll just need to adjust to the changing dynamics.

VMUnify can help a service provider launch a bespoke IaaS , irrespective of the option chosen, so come, talk to us.