Security Is Opportunity in the APAC Data Center Market
By Oliver Jones, Co-Founder and CEO of Chayora
By Oliver Jones
The Asia-Pacific (APAC) region is home to one of the most competitive data center markets in the world. In fact, over the last decade, the APAC data center market has surpassed both the EMEA region and North America in overall growth.
Driving this surge is the demand for connectivity and cloud computing services, both of which are fueling the region’s powerful e-commerce, social media, technology, telecommunications and content delivery providers. The APAC data center market is also greatly benefitting from rapid regional internet penetration and strong enterprise BYOD adoption. APAC now hosts 50 percent of the planet’s internet users and Global Market Insights predicts BYOD usage in the APAC region will continue expanding at a CAGR of 20.8 percent until 2022.
That’s not all that’s contributing to the growth of the APAC data center market, however. One of the market’s most significant influencers is the need for stringent enterprise security. More on that later.
Bad Actors and Botnets
Many of the technologies that are vital for achieving sound enterprise security — including advanced access controls, virtualization security solutions and compliance management systems — are costly and challenging to implement and manage at scale. This is especially true for businesses with aging legacy infrastructure environments that lack the financial wherewithal or internal support to undergo a true digital transformation.
Moreover, not all businesses throughout the world are advancing at the same technological pace. Many companies, particularly those in emerging markets, still lack the advanced backend systems that are necessary for effectively managing and protecting large volumes of data, and maintaining proper visibility across the network. These types of businesses are at high risk for data breaches and unplanned network disruptions.
When we look at enterprise operations, there is the ever-present need of maintaining cybersecurity. All businesses today require networks that are thoroughly protected with advanced threat mitigation, regular security patches and firewalls. These services are essential, as the cyberthreat landscape is becoming increasingly sophisticated and dangerous. Threats like ransomware, phishing, internal bad actors and botnet attacks will not go away. Rather, they will continue to proliferate and disrupt global business operations throughout 2017 and beyond. We can also anticipate that new types of threats will arise that will make secure data center operations all the more mission-critical.
To global data center providers, however, these are not challenges so much as they are opportunities for growth. Businesses should be looking east to data center providers that can ensure operational stability and up time.
Enterprise Security in Asia 
Last year, Microsoft Asia named the APAC region as being “especially vulnerable” to malware, with emerging markets at the highest risk for intrusions. Out of the top five locations across the globe where malware was the biggest threat, four came from the APAC region, including Pakistan, Indonesia, Bangladesh and Nepal.
Looking beyond the nuisance of cyberthreats, enterprise security breaches can also have major economic consequences. After all, network downtime caused by nefarious parties can have major financial consequences, particularly for entities storing mission-critical data, such as the banking, healthcare and government sectors. Additionally, organizations that suffer from operationally inefficient networks can hardly be considered secure.
We can also look at enterprise security as being a critical determining factor in the stability of the larger financial ecosystem. Consider a recent World Bank report that stresses that economic growth within the APAC region is still at significant risk due to financial and fiscal vulnerabilities as well as from infrastructure gaps. In many ways, the internet is now the backbone of the APAC economy, and so it’s in every organization’s best interest to protect their digital assets to create a stronger financial market.
As a whole, the APAC data center market will be instrumental in building a reliable and consistent digital economy, not just regionally, but globally.
All Eyes on China
It’s impossible to discuss the APAC data center industry today without mentioning China, a market is expected to grow at a CAGR of about 13 percent from 2016 to 2020.
Right now, China is receiving a great deal of attention from global enterprises and IT service providers that are looking to expand within the country. However, China also deserves more attention from international hyper-scale companies and private operators. There is a strong need within China for organizations offering secure, cutting-edge network infrastructure and reliable connections to local businesses.
Certain companies are now laying the groundwork to encourage this growth. Chayora, for example, is currently building a massive footprint of data center campuses in strategic locations across China, including Tianjin, Shanghai, Hangzhou and in southern Jiangsu. All Chayora data center sites have fully provisioned power from grid and direct-feed renewable sources, are fiber-connected to world-class standards, including security, and are ready for data center construction and immediate connection to the domestic internet.
In new markets, optimizing the blend between understanding local regulations, laws and policies and assuming international standards is vital, however the tendency to compromise can be a very a bad decision. New developers and operators like Chayora, collaborating with the leading enterprise end users and bridging the international to local knowledge gap will be the backbone of a more resilient, secure and assured APAC digital infrastructure environment.