Adapting to the rapidly shifting data center services market by taking a hybrid approach that straddles the line between being a service provider and being a consultancy.

What Are the Data Center Trends That Deft Sees for 2021?

Deft serves a lot of different kinds of customer needs: Hybrid Cloud services, colocation, management of both on and off premises networking assets, and third-party service integration. Kubernetes and other container-based Cloud servers are some of the hottest products for a lot of their clients. Auditing and consulting services are also quite popular. Public Cloud has become an important cost saving component in quite a few client networks. AWS and Azure are go-to resources, even for hardcore co-location clients. Almost everyone has a hybrid solution, at the end of the day.

Analysis of customer workloads allows Deft to advise clients through their data planning stages. One of the most important questions that they ask is: How are the clients utilizing the technology in their possession, and where do they want to be in the near and the distant future?

Deft has found that some clients leap fully into the Cloud before they really look. It is often in a client’s best interest to slow down, and not just blindly commit to putting all of their operations in the Cloud. The more time and attention put into a detailed, nuanced plan, the better the functionality and cost savings. Getting better metrics for the use of each business application and examining the potential growth of each app over the next few years, are two of the keys to a successful migration.

This form of analysis represents the consultancy side of Deft’s business model. They find themselves fighting against initiatives that drive businesses to ‘follow the leader’ just because senior leadership read some generalized studies that urged full Cloud conversion. They encourage a more scientific approach to future planning, preventing clients from chasing buzzwords unless the metrics and cost considerations bear out such a dramatic technology shift.

Over the last five years, Deft has been able to go to the locations where clients wanted to migrate, following them to several continents throughout the world. Big business partners will often ask for services in the likes of Sydney, Brazil, Tokyo, and Amsterdam. Once data center services are up and running in those new locations for their old clients, Deft will open up the doors to new customers in the region.

Typical hybrid data center services that are on offer in these new locations include: Ping/power/pipe, MSP services for AWS, white glove services like disaster recovery, automated backup, managed firewall solutions, security monitoring, connectivity solutions, IP transport and transit, backbone services, and edge network solutions.

Each facility is close to a peering point with low latency, which can then be used as a way to scale businesses all over the region. Because Deft is privately held, they can do what is best for their clients and closely follow their needs with bespoke services. Then the most successful of these specialized services can become a more broadly available product, open to all clients.

Around 40 percent of Deft’s clients have some kind of global footprint, while 60 percent are strictly U.S. based at the moment. However, a high percentage of those U.S. companies are multihomed throughout the nation. Points of presence throughout the continental United States allow Deft to offer low latency edge networking solutions, comprehensive data backup plans, and communications solutions that can virtually shrink the distance between satellite offices.
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