The Impact of COVID on the Mission Critical Industry

Jessica Ciesla
March 17, 2021

The COVID-19 pandemic pushed already youthful developments of 5G and IoT infrastructure and took them to their limits.  In this blog, we recap 2021 trends for data center infrastructure.

Over the course of 2020, an information technology market research firm, 451 Research, managed six separate surveys of enterprise end users and collected information about the data-center industry during the COVID-19 pandemic. The results of these surveys are summarized in their “2021 Trends in Datacenter Service & Infrastructure” report, which includes a number of insights that our readers will find useful. Most understand, either directly or intuitively, that the pandemic put a spotlight on consumer demand for all things IT; besides an increase in streaming, online shopping, and video conferencing, what does this mean?

What the Pandemic Means for the Industry

As many of us have experienced, there has been a sharp uptick in the development and construction of data center facilities in already dense, North American IT markets; and also in new areas of development (e.g., facilities in smaller submarkets). The increase in facility development has taken the form of new edge facilities too, as the events of 2020 increased focus on new 5G and IoT requirements to meet both temporary and permanent increases in information flow due to the pandemic.

The findings in “2021 Trends in Datacenter Services and Infrastructure” are summarized below:
•    The impact of the pandemic has been a net increase in demand for colocation or leased data centers, particularly those that connect to the cloud or provide managed services;
•    Edge infrastructure will continue to grow due to increased demand for services in smaller cities, and the continued growth of IoT capabilities and applications;
•    Sustainability will continue to be an issue that differentiates manufacturers as consumers seek products that help them operate more competitively. 
The third finding related to sustainability is an interesting one. If nothing else, the data-center industry is one that operates on the foundation of risk aversion; in other words, resiliency and facility uptime are predicated on the ability to withstand disaster. The takeaway from the authors of the 451 Research study is that 2020 was a healthy reminder that risks associated with natural disasters are out of our control, and require the most flexible types of planning.

What the Pandemic Means for Legrand

At Legrand, we continue to support the mission-critical industry into 2021 with a portfolio of products including racks, rack-mount PDUs, KVM switches, overhead power distribution, and Smart Sensors.  Our aim is to continuously learn from the past so that we can provide for an efficient and innovative future. 

Contact us to learn more about how we can support your data center and edge applications with sustainable products that help you compete in 2021 and beyond.