Cloudscene, a resource and marketplace of colocation data centers, cloud service providers and network fabrics, has released its data center operator leaderboard rankings for Q1, 2018.   Cloudscene's quarterly leaderboard highlights the top carrier-neutral data center operators for North America, EMEA, Oceania and Asia.

The first leaderboard for 2018 resulted in significant movement in the rankings, particularly between the operators in both Oceania and Asia.

Equinix's recent acquisition of prominent Australian data center operator, Metronode saw Equinix increase its already significant lead in Oceania by 22%, attributed to the ten colocation facilities consumed as part of the $1b deal.

Equinix's advancement in the Q1, 2018 Leaderboard didn't stop at Oceania, the global colocation company grew by 4% in North America, 3% in EMEA  and 2% in Asia due to an increase in connectivity.

Digital Realty experienced some notable growth in the North America region, stretching its lead from nearest leaderboard rival, CoreSite by 11% due largely to the late 2017 acquisition of DuPont Fabros.

Level 3 Communications and Colt Technology Services both jumped two places in the North America and EMEA regions respectively.

Cloudscene founder  Bevan Slattery says,  “The pace of 2018 was never going to be slow, the foundation of growth in the global data center industry is the rapid movement of enterprises to the cloud.

“Coupled with record-breaking mergers and acquisitions year-on-year, this is an industry experiencing exponential change.

“Cloudscene's Leaderboard has, therefore, become an important tool for the industry to assess the ranking and movement of the major industry players, taking into important consideration carrier neutrality, an area that's critical to the success and longevity of this industry.

Cloudscene's quarterly leaderboard is determined based on a combined score of data center density (total facilities in the region) and connectivity (total service providers across all data centers in the region).

Selected from a pool of more than 6,000 service providers listed on Cloudscene, the Q1, 2018 data center operator leaderboard rankings are as follows:

Oceania 1.Equinix 2.NEXTDC 3.Vocus Communications 4.Global Switch 5.YourDC 6.Macquarie Telecom Group 7.iseek 8.Interactive 9.Datacom 10.Data Center Limited

Asia 1.Equinix 2.Global Switch 3.NTT Communications 4.GPX Global Systems 5.ST Telemedia Global Data Centers 6.Netmagic Solutions 7.AIMS 8.Digital Realty 9.Telstra 10. OneAsia Network