Telefónica Public Policy & Telefónica España Regulatory teams
Recent research has found that cloud computing will generate more than $200,000 million in 2014. In particular, infrastructure (IaaS) in the cloud will represent more than $17,000 million; platforms (PaaS) in the cloud, $3,000 million; and software (SaaS) in the cloud, more than $75,000 million.
In addition, it is estimated that cloud computing will be consolidated in 2015. In that year, more than 90% of big companies and Public Administrations from all over the world will use cloud computing in some way or another. It is also forecasted that in 2015 software and service (SaaS) sales will represent almost ¼ of the total amount of the world’s software sales.
Looking beyond 2015, researchers also predict that by 2020, more than 200,000 million devices will be connected to the internet from time to time, generating more than 50,000 million gigabytes of traffic. Also in 2020 more than one out of two corporate e-mails will be in the cloud, contributing to reach 35 zettabytes of data storage by humankind.
But how do cloud computing service providers storage all these data and software?
Cloud computing service providers storage these data and software in remote equipments to which users can access through the internet in a quick, cheap, flexible and safe way from anywhere and at any time. These remote equipments are hosted by data centres managed by cloud computing service providers.
Then, how do these data centres look like?
Last month, Telefónica opened its largest data centre to house its whole range of ICT services, including cloud computing and customer outsourcing. The centre, built in the Spanish city of Alcalá de Henares and known as ‘Alcalá Data Centre’, comprises a total of 23 Information Technology (IT) rooms and a built area of 65,700m2 on a plot of land the size of 8 football pitches. ‘Alcalá Data Centre’ will be a world benchmark from the outset, and it will operate as Telefónica’s cloud services base for Europe, housing platforms for customers in Spain, the United Kingdom, Germany and the Czech Republic. Its overall goal is to lead Telefónica’s transformation into one of the leading companies in the new digital world environment.
Telefónica has so far invested more than 120 million euros in the ‘Alcalá Data Centre’ and plans to invest a total of 300 million euros over the coming years. The new Data Centre’s capacities guarantee 99.995% annual reliability and it is also the largest Centre in the world with Tier IV certification from the Uptime Institute, which guarantees the highest level of fault tolerance.
You can also take a look to the Alcalá Data Centre’s video below!
