Local data centre providers seek partnerships

Australian and New Zealand data centre operators are hunting for opportunities to form strategic partnerships with fellow providers as a wave of consolidation looms.

DC providers are actively looking to expand their services range to differentiate in a crowded market, and collaborations and partnerships represent one easy way to improve capabilities, according to IDC Research Manager for Infrastructure ANZ Glen Duncan.

“In a rapidly evolving industry, there are many ways that data centre providers can maintain competitive differentiation,” he said.

“Key strategies include investments in technology, mergers and acquisitions, traversing the data centre stack and partnering with other businesses that have complementary capabilities.”

The A/NZ data centre market is complicated, IDC said in a new report. It is served by over 70 providers across a range of provider types - data centre operator, hosting provider, ICT vendor, service provider or telco provider.

These companies offer services ranging from co-location and managed infrastructure to public cloud infrastructure and public application services.

As providers introduce more full-service offerings, direct competition between provider types is increasing, leading to pressure to consolidate and push further up the services stack.

Smaller and specialist providers will meanwhile need to find alternative ways to stand out. With data centre power consumption coming under increased scrutiny, niche players may be able to differentiate through energy efficiency.

Image courtesy of Sean Ellis under CC