Effective Cloud Strategies Start with Data Center Connectivity
March 06, 2025 at 5:00 PM EST
Every business, no matter how large or small, depends on data and the ability to capture it, store it and manage it. As digital transformation continues to reshape business in real-time, the amount of data businesses collects and handle is increasing each year, and the ability to manage, connect, and protect it grows more challenging.
Enterprise leaders have two choices: keep their data in-house or move some or all of it off-site. Due to the cost, complexity and resources required to store and manage larger and larger volumes of data in-house, most businesses choose the latter. Their preferred solution? The cloud.
What is the Cloud?
Put simply, "the cloud" or cloud storage is technology that allows businesses and individual to store and access a gargantuan amount of data without physically storing this data on their computer or even at the same site as them. Instead, this data is stored on cloud servers and accessed via public or private internet connections.
Currently, over 98% of organizations, from the smallest to the largest, use cloud computing in some way, whether they use cloud-based applications like Google Drive or Open AI or have seats in public, private or hybrid cloud hosting solutions. Reports indicate that approximately 60% of all business data is now stored in the cloud.
So where is all this data actually stored? Despite the name, it's not just floating in the ether - it's stored in data centers.
What Are Data Centers?
Data centers provide the necessary infrastructure, , security, and support to host and manage every cloud resource and application. Across the business IT landscape, the diversity of cloud environments—along with the various use cases, pros and cons—has increased dramatically over the last decade. But they all have (at least) one thing in common. Data centers.
In the case of the largest cloud providers like Microsoft, their cloud infrastructure consists of more than 4 million interconnected servers distributed across 300+ data centers in 60 regions around the world. Smaller companies may be able to store their cloud infrastructure in just a few rows of server cabinets in one data center.
It is not a stretch to say that, without data centers, there would be no clouds. Therefore, businesses that want to optimize the value of their cloud-based services must consider their data center connectivity strategy.
Cloud, Data Center, Enterprise: A Win-Win-Win Relationship
Data centers house the physical hardware, servers, and networking equipment necessary to support cloud services. But it’s not a one-way relationship. Distributing workloads across multiple data centers enhances flexibility, scalability, efficiency, and redundancy. The cloud and data center synergy allows organizations to access computing resources on demand, remotely, with high agility and security. Moreover, it also shifts the cost and burden of IT infrastructure management from the customer to the cloud and data centers.
The hybrid cloud model highlights the symbiotic relationship between cloud, data center, and enterprise. In the hybrid model, businesses distribute data workloads between decentralized cloud resources and centralized (non-cloud) data center resources. This combines the reliability and security of data centers with the agility and scalability of the cloud. Sensitive data and mission-critical applications remain protected inside the data center, while using the cloud for non-critical workloads or to manage surges in demand.
As the demands for more cloud capacity increase, the variety of data center models grows as well. Today, businesses can choose from a range of capability and pricing options.
Data Center Models and Types
Edge data centers
These are smaller facilities located closer to the customers an organization serves, enabling businesses to interact with customers at greater speeds and with minimal latency.
Cloud data centers
Cloud data centers are operated and managed by cloud service providers to support their private and public cloud offerings. For example, Amazon's AWS operates many cloud data centers to help its clients and users access AWS services quickly, regardless of their location. These high-security facilities typically provide advanced encryption, security protocols, two-factor authentication, and single sign-on control.
Multi-tenant data centers
A multi-tenant data center (MTDC), or a colocation data center, operates much like a hotel. Secure dedicated customer areas, known as cages, connect to shared compute, storage, and network resources based on the customer’s requirements. MTDCs allow enterprises to lease flexible space, making them ideal for businesses of all sizes seeking scalable, secure, and efficient data center solutions.
The Critical Link: Data Center Connectivity
Think of data centers as a storage facility and cloud computing as a high-speed car delivering data. These cars need roads—data center connectivity. It’s the vital link between a company and its data center and cloud resources, enabling businesses to leverage efficiency, power, and productivity.
These connections aren’t one-way—they’re an interconnected highway system that scales with demand. Distributing workloads across multiple data centers enhances flexibility, scalability, efficiency, and redundancy. The cloud and data center synergy gives businesses on-demand, secure, and agile access to computing resources while shifting IT infrastructure costs and management from the customer to the cloud and data centers.
The hybrid cloud model illustrates the cloud, data center, and enterprise synergy. Businesses split workloads between centralized data centers and decentralized cloud resources, combining data center security and reliability with cloud agility and scalability. Sensitive data stays protected in the data center, while the cloud handles non-critical workloads and demand surges.
What Kind of Data Center Connectivity Does Your Business Need?
The link between a company's cloud services and its data centers can be established in various ways, such as a private connection like dedicated internet access service, a site-to-site virtual private network (VPN) or a dedicated multiprotocol label switching (MPLS) link.
Ultimately, the type of connection you need will depend on several variables, such as:
- Bandwidth: How much data will the business be transmitting back and forth on a regular basis?
- Latency performance: What are the response times required to run the applications?
- Security requirements: How sensitive and important is the data being transmitted?
In order to deploy and maintain a connection to the data center, the business will need to ask themselves a few questions:
What type of network equipment and software are needed to connect to the data center and secure the data?
This will likely include routers, switches, firewalls, uninterruptible power supplies and systems to help monitor network bandwidth and, performance.
What is provided by the data center in their service level agreement (SLA)?
An SLA confirms in writing the level of service the data center will guarantee. These agreements typically cover key infrastructure elements and service metrics like power, temperature and network availability and often offer a 100% uptime guarantee for power, temperature and bandwidth.
Does the business have enough bandwidth from its network provider to maintain a consistent connection to the data center now and in the future as its cloud use grows?
The more data-intensive the application is, the larger the company’s data pipe should be. The smallest companies can run basic cloud applications and services with as little as 100 or 200 megabits per second (Mbps) of bandwidth. Large enterprises may need multiple 100 gigabit per second (Gbps) connections.
Glo Fiber Business: Your Data Center Connectivity Partner
High-speed, high-reliability and low-latency connectivity to your data center providers is essential for maximizing the value of cloud services. Moreover, every business has unique data center and connectivity requirements. Some organizations require enhanced security of a Tier 4-classified data center,; while others find that a Tier 1 facility meets their operational needs. Still, others may require connections to data centers that are compliant with HIPAA, US-EU Safe Harbor, SSAE 16 or PCI certifications.
Glo Fiber Business’s Data Center Connectivity solutions enable every business to tailor a plan that meets their specific needs. We offer direct connections to dozens of data centers that meet a variety of certifications and tier levels while providing a range of options for services and security. With data speeds up to 100 Gbps, Glo Fiber Business can provide a best-fit solution for any size business.
Businesses in Oho can also take advantage of our Cloud Express service. Through our partnership with Megaport and its extensive cloud provider ecosystem, you can connect directly to 300+ cloud service providers, including Amazon AWS, Microsoft Azure, Salesforce, Oracle, Google, IBM and more.
Cloud Express enables you to bypass the public internet, improving performance while reducing costs associated with self-provisioning. Cloud Express is also highly configurable, allowing you to choose from E-Line, E-Lan and E-Tree options. With scalable bandwidth, we provision your service in seconds, not weeks, giving your business the agility and speed it needs to compete.
All Glo Fiber Business Data Center Connectivity and Cloud Express solutions run on one of the most advanced fiber networks in our service area. Our robust network incorporates a redundant, ring-protected network architecture, plus along with strategically located network points of presence (POPs) offering diverse connectivity and power. This ensures disaster-resistant service that is built to survive worst-case scenarios. We also offer deployment protection options for partially diverse, fully diverse, and redundant POPs.
The Glo Fiber Business network spans over 18,000 fiber miles and is actively monitored 24/7/365 from our local Network Operations Center. This continuous monitoring enables us to support superior SLAs for latency, availability and reliable packet delivery.
No matter where your business is located, we all live, work and compete in a global economy. The cloud has become the essential conduit for modern business, enabling organizations to operate efficiently and compete effectively. Accessing that conduit requires a fast, flexible and reliable connection to data centers.
To learn more about your Data Center Connectivity options, get a personalized quote from one of our Glo Fiber Business Account Managers today.