The backbone of every modern business isn't just its people, services, or products – it's the invisible network of technology that keeps everything running smoothly. Every email sent, application accessed, and customer interaction relies on digital infrastructure working behind the scenes. Essentially, this digital foundation shapes the way businesses compete and thrive in today's hyper-connected world.

In this blog, we'll explain everything you need to know about digital infrastructure and what it does for your business.

What Is Digital Infrastructure?

Digital infrastructure encompasses the technologies that support business operations and communication. This typically includes:

• Physical hardware, such as servers and computers
• Software components, such as applications and operating systems
• Data storage
• Cloud services

Together, these components let organizations process, store, and transmit data while delivering digital services to employees and customers.

An optimized digital infrastructure plays an important role in supporting operations across every industry, ensuring businesses can meet their specific needs efficiently. Here are some examples of how various industries leverage digital infrastructure to drive growth and innovation:

• AI Development: Cloud services and scalable infrastructure support AI companies by providing the processing power and storage capacity needed to train large models. 
• Finance: Financial institutions must ensure that their data storage systems are secure, reliable, and compliant with regulations like PCI DSS and GDPR.
• Healthcare: Healthcare organizations depend on advanced storage and processing systems to ensure patient data is easily accessible by authorized personnel while adhering to regulations like HIPAA.

By investing in the right digital infrastructure, businesses can not only keep up with current demands but also position themselves for future growth and success.

Why Is Digital Infrastructure Important?

Businesses without reliable digital infrastructure often face service interruptions and poor connectivity. Optimizing your digital infrastructure for your company's specific needs ensures your data flows efficiently, your applications run smoothly, and your teams can always access what they need whenever they need it.

4 Benefits of Effective Digital Infrastructure

Strong digital infrastructure creates systemic improvements across your organization's network operations. Here's how optimizing your company's digital infrastructure can improve your business functions at every level:

Process Optimization

Effective digital infrastructure streamlines core business processes through advanced network automation and intelligent routing. Your systems can handle transactions more reliably, databases run faster, and software applications integrate better. Rather than dealing with slowdowns or errors, you get consistent performance across business operations.

For example, retail companies like Walmart have optimized their supply chain with infrastructure upgrades, such as warehouse automation,¹ for real-time stock updates and faster shipping processes.

Network Performance

When you upgrade your digital infrastructure, you're also upgrading how data moves through your business. Intelligent traffic management ensures your critical applications are prioritized, while advanced networking features reduce latency, improve throughput, and maintain consistent performance during peak usage periods. 

Netflix has invested significantly in improving network performance with upgrades to its content delivery infrastructure.² These infrastructure improvements aim to help the streaming service provider reduce network congestion and deliver higher-quality content to end users.

Operational Scalability

The right digital infrastructure can adapt to meet your organization's changing needs. Modern IT systems can automatically scale to add more data processing power, storage, or bandwidth, so you don't have to worry about outgrowing your technology or making constant upgrades.

For instance, integrating cloud infrastructure services like AWS enables businesses like healthcare providers to scale their data storage and processing capacity with ease.³ 

Technical Agility

Optimized digital infrastructure creates an environment where technical innovation can flourish. Advanced networking capabilities make it easier to roll out new services, connect new digital technologies, and adapt to new business requirements. Having an agile digital infrastructure lets you respond faster to market changes, scale operations more easily, and deliver a better customer experience than your competitors relying on outdated systems.

Tesla’s digital infrastructure is built to support its agile Autopilot system, which relies on tight integration between custom hardware and software.⁴ This capability allows the company to send over-the-air updates to vehicles seamlessly, providing customers with new features and performance updates without needing to visit a service center. 

How Does Digital Infrastructure Relate to Cybersecurity?

Strong cybersecurity depends on secure digital infrastructure. Strong cybersecurity depends on secure digital infrastructure. Without a secure foundation, businesses are vulnerable to cyber threats like ransomware, Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attacks, and data breaches. Outdated systems, misconfigured networks, and weak access controls provide potential entry points for these attacks, which can spread throughout your IT environment.

eStruxture offers best-in-class security across our digital infrastructure, including advanced encryption, around-the-clock monitoring, and redundancy measures. Our data centers are SOC 2 Type II certified, which means we meet the highest standards for security and data protection. We also undergo third-party audits under SSAE 18 standards and comply with requirements 9 and 12 of PCI DSS to ensure your security needs are met at any of our facilities.

The Future of Digital Infrastructure

As technology evolves, businesses must upgrade their digital infrastructure to keep up. Here are some trends shaping the future of digital infrastructure:

Energy Efficiency

Sustainability has become central to digital business infrastructure planning. Modern systems are built to optimize power usage while improving performance – a pivotal move, as experts predict enterprise IT will generate a carbon footprint equivalent to 256 million homes' annual electricity usage by 2025.⁴ To meet sustainability goals, more businesses are turning to energy-efficient cooling systems and renewable power sources.

Diversification

Companies are expanding infrastructure across regions and providers to increase reliability and reach new markets. Hybrid and multi-cloud approaches can help businesses optimize costs while maintaining flexibility, and edge computing offers the processing power needed to deliver faster response times and improved customer experiences.

AI-Ready

Many businesses lack the necessary digital infrastructure to support their growing AI workloads. With AI spending expected to increase by 25-50% in 2025,⁵ organizations are investing in high-performance computing resources and specialized hardware to enable faster AI development and deployment while supporting automated infrastructure management.

Future-Proof Your Digital Infrastructure With eStruxture

Building a strong digital infrastructure is essential for business success, but it takes significant time, resources, and expertise to implement effectively. Data center colocation offers a smart alternative, providing access to AI-ready and hyperscale-grade technology without the complexity and expense of managing it yourself.

eStruxture offers carrier and cloud-neutral colocation services in fifteen high-power density and sustainably-designed data center facilities across Canada. Our customized approach means you'll always get the best combination of space, power, and cooling to meet your unique needs and support your growing workloads. Plus, you gain access to over 50 network providers and a global ecosystem of cloud services to ensure optimal connectivity for your business.

Future-proof your business today with eStruxture's scalable colocation solutions. Contact us to transform your digital infrastructure.

Sources:

1. https://www.forbes.com/sites/stevebanker/2021/04/23/walmarts-massive-investment-in-a-supply-chain-transformation
2. https://openconnect.netflix.com/Open-Connect-Briefing-Paper.pdf
3. https://aws.amazon.com/health/providers
4. https://www.tesla.com/AI
5. https://www.capgemini.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/05/Sustainable-IT_Report.pdf
6. https://www.forbes.com/sites/garydrenik/2024/08/29/are-organizations-ready-for-the-full-integration-of-ai