Yes, the Cloud Is a Catalyst; It’s Also a Competitive Benchmark

The flexibility of the cloud and improved network performance mean that enterprises are no longer focused on selecting data center sites based on proximity to an enterprise’s headquarters. When you also consider the density and energy efficiency challenges faced by aging on-prem data centers, and it’s easy to see how cloud data centers are a catalyst for evolution in the market. But the cloud does more than drive change. It’s also a benchmark for the metrics that matter the most as enterprise IT leaders decide where an application should live.

Cloud data centers are typically located where the metrics of  total cost of ownership, flexibility, performance, and ‘righteousness’ are optimized. This white paper provides an overview of the US markets with the lowest total cost of ownership by ranking them based on land, energy, network and labor costs. The author also compares the northern Virginia and New Jersey data center markets.

Stream Data Centers also explores the importance of metrics like data center flexibility, performance, connectivity, energy efficiency, and renewable energy.