Does Your Infrastructure Strategy Support Your 2026 Business Goals?

2026 is upon us.  You likely have a well-thought-out plan designed to ensure a profitable and productive year.  But are you certain you’re utilizing the right infrastructure to hit your goals?  Let’s take a look at potential IT business needs and talk about different infrastructure options and how public cloud, corporate-owned data center owners, and colocation line up as potential options for each. 

Availability & Uptime: Public cloud providers had a rough 2025, with AWS, Cloudflare, and Microsoft Azure among the major providers with long, painful outages in Q4 alone.   Any time a news report leads with “the internet was brought to its knees Monday when Amazon Web Services experience a massive, day-long outage,” you know it was an ugly time for the tech sector, and for the 100% of businesses and individuals downstream who use tech. 

It is clear that large public cloud providers have a complexity to their operations that can lead to significant, cascading outages.   But have we reached a point where companies with widespread direct-to-consumer operations that find value in the cloud can just tell their customers “Hey, it’s <insert cloud provider here>’s fault” and avoid blame?   It’s possible, especially for direct-to-consumer sales.  Business customers may expect more. 

Corporate-owned and colocation data centers have varying levels of uptime and reliability.  Some older data centers in Eastern Pennsylvania are starting to show their age via various elements proving less dependable and in need of replacement.   But different facilities in our area have shown a wide range of reliability.  If you own and operate a corporate data center you probably know the strengths and weaknesses of your facility.   When it comes to colocation facilities ask a lot of pointed questions, as some have spotty reliability while others have a history of decades of high availability. 

Flexibility:  Most companies weren’t worried about an AI strategy a year or two ago but now advances in AI are driving revolutionary changes in IT infrastructure. A lot of older on-premise data centers don’t have the power or cooling to handle AI loads without costly upgrades, and AI APIs from public cloud providers are still immature and inadequate for many cutting-edge applications.

Smart IT managers will stay flexible and avoid getting locked into a specific public cloud architecture.  We believe that hybrid colocation is the best option for most enterprises with existing IT infrastructure. Colocation is especially attractive during periods of rapid technological change, as it can allow ramps in contracts for staggered move ins, while also providing options for expansion in the event of growing needs.  Modern colocation facilities are able to handle current and future power and cooling loads from AI and other high-density IT workloads. In addition, fiber and interconnection can be a strength for some providers.   A dozen carriers and direct cloud onramps are hallmarks of our service at Direct LTx.  

Economy: Many companies have discovered that public cloud is NOT a budget-friendly option.  Getting the most out of cloud can require revamping your whole IT department and hiring expensive cloud architects and other highly paid staff.  While web startups benefit from the instant scalability and testing capabilities of public cloud, most established enterprises have more predictable IT workloads. For companies with predictable needs and a regional focus, the cloud can be financially akin to renting a Ferrari for a drive to your favorite pizza joint. 

Companies relying on older on-premise data centers are also facing sticker shock when they look at maintenance costs and upgrades. Yet putting off these expenses will both compromise your reliability as well as prevent you from taking advantage of revolutionary new AI tools.  

Colocation is usually the most economical over the long run cycle of your technology platform. Although there are some start-up costs, they are far lower than the capital expanses of an on-prem data center upgrade. Over a 3-5 year cycle colocation generally comes out ahead of the large storage, egress, and subscription fees associated with a cloud strategy. Colocation can offer economical, predictable, and more manageable costs over time while keeping staff engaged and in tighter control of your technology platforms.

More to Consider: DirectLTx has published a white paper entitled 8 Key Questions for Every Philly IT Decisionmaker that examines these issues and more Click here to read it.  

All the best to you and your organization in hitting your business goals in 2026!!