Cloud to Edge Datacenter Trends

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Sean Graham

Research Director, Cloud to Edge Datacenter Trends



IDC's Cloud to Edge Datacenter Trends research provides a broad view of the market forces and technologies impacting enterprise and service provider datacenter investments. Datacenter facilities are key assets supporting digital transformation and resilient businesses. These key assets are evolving to support demanding new workloads and technologies that reside in core, cloud, and edge facilities. At the same time, datacenters are under increasing pressure to be highly efficient to support sustainability goals and reduce operational costs. The way that datacenters are designed, deployed, and managed is transforming to meet the rising demands for highly efficient and resilient IT service across all locations. IDC examines the shifting demands on datacenter resources and forecasts datacenter facility trends and market growth. IDC analyzes the challenges that both enterprises and service providers face in managing and optimizing datacenter resources and their strategies to improve.


Markets and Subjects Analyzed


  • Worldwide and U.S. datacenter build and remodel forecasts
  • Role of IT and datacenters in sustainability progress
  • How business needs and digital transformation initiatives are shaping datacenter strategies
  • Decision processes and criteria for choosing datacenter providers
  • Role of datacenter resources in supporting agile and scalable IT
  • Enterprise and service provider datacenter progress on sustainability initiatives
  • DCIM and smarter datacenter technology adoption trends
  • Strategies for deploying and managing edge resources
  • Impact of high-performance computing and new AI workloads on datacenter resources
  • Using predictive and proactive maintenance to transform datacenter management
  • Adoption of modular, containerized, and micro datacenters

Core Research


  • U.S. and Worldwide Datacenter Installation Census and Construction Forecast
  • IDC FutureScape: Datacenter
  • IDC Market Glance: Sustainable Datacenters
  • Worldwide and U.S. Datacenter Deployment Model and Spend Forecast
  • Key Findings from the Datacenter Operational Survey
  • Worldwide Datacenter Infrastructure Management Forecast

In addition to the insight provided in this service, IDC may conduct research on specific topics or emerging market segments via research offerings that require additional IDC funding and client investment.


Key Questions Answered


  1. How are business and IT changes reshaping datacenter investments and operations strategies?
  2. How many datacenters are there worldwide and in the United States?
  3. How will artificial intelligence, machine learning, high-performance computing, and software-defined IT impact datacenter critical infrastructure?
  4. What investments are being made to improve datacenter efficiency and drive sustainability initiatives?
  5. How are smarter datacenter technologies supporting remote monitoring and operational efficiency?
  6. What are key challenges in operating datacenters and strategies to overcome them?