From Tradition to a Disruptive Business Model

Before hyperscalers dominated the data center market, working with a data center required visiting the site in mind and working things out. Traditional data centers operated much like apartment buildings; renting a server rack was like renting an entire floor, using a server was like renting an apartment on that floor, and renting a VM was like renting one room within that apartment. Data centers were different by all means, but all data centers operated within this scope and offered the same ingredients as the others. Many successful companies were made under this model, however, the introduction of AWS shook the room.

In 2006, AWS offered a new disruptive business model and offered the bed in the room, 

allowing for pay-as-you-go pricing for data center elements and shaking up the existing market. What made AWS’ approach so revolutionary wasn’t necessarily reinventing the data center wheel, but adding on top of it. Instead of having to work with data centers itself, hyperscalers do the heavy lifting for you, giving all the rental compute resources through a platform overlay. Hyperscalers became extremely popular because they were able to offer capabilities that data centers already hosted (servers, racks, etc) and a means to scale usage up and down quickly and conveniently. 

Traditionally, working with a data center required having more than one server to scale, as well as having a knowledgeable professional on your team to even get started. Oftentimes, teams would spend more time configuring and maintaining their infra rather than working on core projects. On the other hand, working with a hyperscaler is typically platform-based, allowing users to easily access compute resources and configure infrastructure through a single pane of glass. The result is more users flocking to hyperscalers because of a lower barrier to entry.

Users, now more than ever, are able to focus on core development rather than infrastructure with hyperscalers.

Before the inception of Lyrid, I’ve worked closely with regional data centers, trying to understand how to set them apart from the hyperscalers of today. Today, our business models combine data centers and users alike, offering the platform capabilities of hyperscalers while highlighting what makes our individual data center partners so unique. Taking cues from AirBNB, we’re reinventing what working with data centers means.

The AirBNB Business Model, but for Data Centers

The AirBNB business model is a simple but effective one. 

The home rental service operates under a structure similar to an aggregator model of business, in which the aggregator (AirBNB in this case) works directly with contracted providers and sells their product or service to customers under the aggregator brand. AirBNB operates within a two-sided market: one side is the supplier (people that own the room and house) and the other side is the consumer (people seeking to rent). 

In the same vein as transitioning from traditional data center models to hyperscalers, AirBNB provided a unique solution that removes a lot of the headache and management of traditional renting. Before, people would have to market, sell, and manage the rooms and transaction process by themselves, with people seeking to rent often having difficulty finding these unique rental options. AirBNB provides two distinct interfaces to solve this problem: one interface designed to offer seller services, the other side offering rental purchasing services. 

The rental service has become the middleman, housing all important rental information and logistics and facilitating transactions, so hosts and travelers don’t have to.

With this model, all parties involved benefitted:

• Hosts earn income and rent out extra space
• Travelers get accommodations and rent directly from owners
• AirBNB receives commission and transaction fees

The business model for AirBNB saw the popularization of two-sided markets. Through this, we saw the opportunity to expand on data center economics.

Lyrid operates in a similar fashion, creating a two-sided market that benefits all parties while offering competitive rates in a huge cloud computing landscape.

Reinvigorating the Data Center Business Model

Taking cues from both hyperscaler models and AirBNB’s business model, we’ve created an approach to working with data centers that is extremely user-friendly and supports local and regional data centers. 

Lyrid works with regional data centers to provide a unique, two-sided market experience. Our disruptive business model is aimed at creating a network of users and data centers worldwide, spreading access to powerful tech. On one end, users are able to access powerful bare metal infrastructure resources offered by data centers through our platform. On the other end, regional data centers are able to stay competitive by selling their machines through our platform. 

As with our platform operations, benefits received are also two-sided. Through this data center dynamic, Lyrid users are able to receive hyperscaler capabilities with deployments of any size at competitive prices. Users seeking the power of bare metal machinery also aren’t responsible for the management and configuration of these services, us and our partners are! Similar to AirBNB hosts, regional data centers that might have trouble operating in a hyperscaler-dominated market are able to sell their machinery and resources directly on Lyrid, receiving sales and marketing support in the process.

While this may seem like the hyperscaler model under a different moniker, the difference lies within choice. Through our platform, users are able to choose exactly which data centers they want to work with, with their benefits knowing no bounds. Lyrid users will directly benefit as our data center partner network grows, giving them more choice in how they want to host their apps, how deployments are conducted, and so on.

Data Center Goals

Our goals within this model lie true to the overarching goal of our company: to lower the barrier to entry of powerful tech so anyone anywhere can access groundbreaking solutions.

Lyrid users are able to access different data center resources from all around the globe, letting the only thing limiting their use being their imagination. Through this unique take on data center interactions, we hope to enhance our current customer experience and provide more and more resources as they become available. 

For data center partners, one of our biggest goals is to create dedicated data center UI that allows for things like:

• Simple equipment onboarding
• Self pricing
• Negotiated discounts
• Detailed machine description

And so much more. 

Through automation, data centers will be able to bring their machines to the market faster than ever before.

In the end, our data center initiative will be a connected network of global data centers, both big and small, that can supply the power and resources necessary for innovation to flourish. And we’re excited to say that we’re making progressive strides towards that future.

Data Center Requirements and How to Work with Lyrid

While we would love to work with every data center, that isn’t the most feasible thing for our company. That being said, here are some requirements for working with us:

• Do you have an IaaS layer already?
  
  • If yes, that’s great! Our partnership will be even easier
  • If no, no worries, we can provide your infrastructure as a rentable bare metal service instead
• Is your data center tier 3 or higher?
  
  • If yes, perfect! We appreciate the strong uptime and hope to work with you soon!
  • If no, no worries- we accept Tier 2 partners from time to time but please contact us if so
• Do you charge for egress?
  
  • If yes, we can still work with you, but pricing might be a bit hard to figure out
  • If no, great! Not charging for egress is something we look to offer our customers

In terms of users, anyone can use Lyrid, regardless of project size!

We’re always looking for partners to join our global data center network! Disruptive innovation is only great if you have some good friends along the way. If you’re interested in talking logistics and learning more about what we’re about, book a call with me!

Thanks for reading!