iDC* (Internet Data Center) to evolve as the prime driving force for the emerging computing utility services infrastructure, says IDC*

The traditional IT industry is set to experience the transformation to

a computing utility service model with the advent of Internet Data Centers. Computing

services are increasingly delivered from a remote or third-party Internet data center,

from which end users access applications, content and storage capacity. This can be

compared to the service model of telecom companies where infrastructure is owned and

managed by the service provider, the end user avails the services only.

IDC in one of its latest research report titled, ‘Internet

Data Center Services Market in India: 2001’ has studied the developments

taking place in the iDC market from the perspective of both iDC market space players and

the end users in the medium and large enterprises. The findings are based on a survey of

500+ medium and large enterprises and close to 10 market players.

The iDC services are classified under two sub categories, Outsourcing

services and Utility- based services. Outsourcing services include the management of

customer owned or leased systems, the iDC takes responsibility for managing the

client’s IT and network systems- the computing infrastructure- based on customer

defined SLAs. Utility- based services on the other hand are delivered when the iDC owns

the infrastructure and leases back to the customer the IT or network capacity.

Market Overview

The iDC market in India is slated to grow at a CAGR of 53% from Rs.

164.1 crores in 2000- 2001 to Rs. 1394 crores in 2005-06. Though currently the market is

dominated by the Outsourcing services and the share of Utility services is less than 10%,

the later is likely to grow at a much faster rate during the projection period. Currently,

most of the iDCs in India are dependent on the provision of outsourcing services such as

co-location, however, the iDCs would themselves have the ownership of most of their

services and hardware in the near future.

While a few big players currently dominate the market, the competitive

climate looks to change over the next few years with the small and nimble players posing a

tough fight for the bigger players.

Awareness of the iDC concept

IDC in its end user survey gauged the awareness level of the iDC

concept amongst the corporates. Awareness of iDC offerings and its benefits has been found

to be low and is an issue, which needs to be addressed with priority. There has been

significant variance in the same by size of the organisation. 37% of the large

organizations have been found to be aware compared to only 14% of the medium ones. This is

primarily due to the reason that till now most of the iDCs have made efforts to target

large sized organizations only.

The highest awareness was found to be amongst the Internet/ dotcom/

telecom at 51%. Organizations owning websites or using enterprise applications showed

higher level of awareness.

Adoption Status

Of those organizations having their own web sites, majority is hosting

their websites with ISPs, only a few have availed iDC services. When exposed to the

concept of iDC, though 36% of the medium and large organisations liked the concept, only

1.1% had shown willingness to adopt the same. IDC feels with growing need to outsource, as

users’ IT infrastructure becomes more and more complex, iDC services will find more

takers. This will be more towards utility-based services. IDC feels Internet Data Center

players would need to invest in the resources, infrastructure and systems needed to meet

this demand.

Majority of the organizations who have adopted or planning to adopt iDC

services is not able to verbalize the details on various services and applications. Large

organizations seem to be more forthcoming in their responses. On an overall basis the most

preferred services offered by iDCs are hardware and software support, consulting,

application development & deployment and design services.

Definitions:

Definitions of some of the key terms used in the study:

Medium Organizations: Organizations having

more than 49 but less than 500 permanent and non-manual employees.

Large Organizations: Organizations having 500

or more than 500 permanent and non-manual employees.

* Kindly note:

iDC – Internet Data Center

IDC – International Data Corporation