Gartner, world’s leading research and advisory company, predicts that 80% of enterprises will have shut down their traditional on-premise data center by 2025. Companies’ IT requirements are evolving, because business and customer needs are changing. New technologies like the Internet of Things or edge services are pushing companies away from their data center. Furthermore, businesses are developing IT strategies that focus on their application portfolio, rather than on their physical infrastructure. Also, the customer experience is getting more attention. All this makes organizations reconsider where their applications and equipment should be housed, based on network latency, customer population clusters and geopolitical limitations.

You will probably think that this prediction is music to our ears. Partly it is of course, because when enterprises close down their own data center, they usually choose one of two options: migrating their data into the cloud or moving their servers to a professional data center. However, these days there is a ‘cloud first’-hype. Some companies decide to go with one of the large cloud players like Microsoft, Amazon, Google or Oracle. But at LCL, you can get the best of both worlds as we provide easy access to multiple cloud providers. Our cloud neutrality allows you to connect directly to one of our partners. By which we mean Belgian cloud providers who house their clouds at our data centers like for example Arcadiz, Arxus (Cronos Group), Cheops, Combell, Fujitsu, Nucleus, Proact, RealDolmen, Savaco or Sentia.

Another option is of course to skip the cloud and to store your data directly at the servers in a professional data center. Your own data center requires a lot of maintenance, but this service is included at external data centers like LCL. Our trained staff has the right skills and knowledge to take care of all our critical infrastructure 24/7, making sure your equipment keeps running without interruption. Power cuts, lightning strikes, fires, insufficient cooling, security breaches, ... these are the things you don’t need to worry about. We take care of that, while you can focus on your core business. And let’s not forget the other services which are included at LCL: redundancy and security. Also, our carrier neutrality gives you the flexibility to easily switch between different operators.

IT infrastructure is getting more complex every day, so companies are looking for external service partners to help. Maybe you are as well? We offer you business continuity, crucial in today’s business world. And on top of that you can replicate all your critical data to one of our other data centers. If I were you, I would rethink my IT strategy sometime soon…