As more companies shift to an increasingly digital business model, the demand for colocation services is growing. In turn, data center construction is set to increase at a steady rate in the coming years, according to a recent study from Research and Markets. With new, state-of-the-art infrastructure coming online and the industry gravitating toward large-scale data center deployments, companies may want to reconsider how these trends can simplify their own IT strategies.

According to the Research and Markets study, the global data center construction market is set to grow at a compound annual rate of 21 percent through 2018. This trend is largely being driven by the increasing challenge of managing a data center as new demands in terms of efficient energy use, alternative power sources and industry regulations complicate the logistics of building and running an enterprise facility. Additionally, the growing complexity of network infrastructure is proving a challenge for many companies to handle internally, prompting them to look for outsourced solutions.

In addition to new construction, many existing facilities are also being forced to retrofit with new server, power and cooling equipment to absorb the challenges of the contemporary tech landscape, ITBusinessEdge's Arthur Cole noted in a recent column. The result is a change in the profile of the average data center.

"Going forward, infrastructure will be leaner and meaner, but the individual pieces will be more powerful and flexible," Cole wrote. "And the [data centers themselves] will be fewer in number, but much, much bigger."

Rather than try to weather these changes themselves, companies may find it expedient to embrace the trend toward colocation and instead look for a trusted third-party data center provider. With the right partner, companies can position themselves to transition smoothly into the future.