| | December 20218IN MY OPINIONThe pandemic-era acceleration of digital transformation exposed multiple IT challenges for enterprises ­ and one of the biggest is maintaining business continuity while managing growing volumes of data across myriad applications and rapidly scaling platforms.As we head into 2022, enterprises are continuing to ramp-up applications and platforms as they accelerate their digital transformation and at the crux of this all is data. The sheer volume of data being created daily has led to a new phenomenon: Data Gravity, or the concept of data becoming so unwieldy that it starts to generate its own mass. This can be compared to the way a planet exerts its own gravitational pull-on nearby moons, planets, and stars. The accumulation of data makes it harder to move. This can cause management complexities and can hinder digital transformation.To keep up with the pace of change, physical infrastructure is required at the backend leading to a convergence of the digital and physical world. This convergence needs to be addressed globally (data centre) and locally (physical infrastructure), a requirement that is also termed as `glocal.' Digital infrastructure requires deployment on physical architecture that brings endpoints and users on mobile devices together. The physical and digital world must bring traffic from the physical infrastructure closer to the user. As data creation amplifies, the infrastructure and applications needed to process, aggregate, and enrich it must be brought closer to the data for maximum benefit.At Interxion: A Digital Realty Company, we see the power of `Glocal' and it is fast becoming fundamental to building a data-centric, hybrid IT environment that is rapidly redefining the way your business operates.GlOCal innovation Glocal infrastructures require a new approach to enable enterprises to interconnect global communities around their most strategic assets ­ data. One that moves beyond cross-connections and traditional interconnection backhaul, giving way to an era of open, pervasively connected data communities colocated at centres of data. It forces a shift to a data-centric architecture, where data is at the centre of the architecture and integration is the challenge.Digital Realty's Data Gravity Index showed Data Gravity intensity growth across 53 global metros by a compound annual growth rate of 139% globally through 2024. IDG indicates data volumes are growing at an average of 63% per month, and by 2025 over 463 exabytes of data will be created each day. As more applications create more data and more data needs to be exchanged with more applications, the gravitational effect of the data increases in volume, velocity, and scale. Think about that on a global scale.Current backhaul architectures simply aren't able to solve Data Gravity challenges. An inverted data-centric architecture deployed at points of presence in neutral, multi-tenant data centres is needed to deliver fit-for-purpose digital infrastructure. IN 2022 AND BEYOND, IT IS ALL ABOUT THE DATABy Jeff Tapley, Group MD ­ EMEA, Interxion: A Digital Realty CompanyAs the weight of enterprise data intensifies, smart CIOs will nurture a data-first approach to infrastructure
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