Hybrid cloud partnerships, massive public cloud meltdowns, the cloud's effect on the colocation industry, and hyper-scale network design were among the most popular stories that appeared on Data Center Knowledge in 2017.

Here are the biggest trends and events that made the year a transformative one for the industry.

Agrees to pay $440 million for business with four large data centers in London and Frankfurt

Already a dominant player in Australia, Equinix will now expand in Sydney and Melbourne and enter new markets.

Cloud giants are investing heavily in data center capacity in the highly strategic Asian hub, but most of the investment isn’t going to wholesale data center providers.

Deal to add four US data center locations to Iron Mountain’s colocation footprint

Follows other new entrants Switch, DataBank, and Ascent into network-rich market

New Cloud Exchange Fabric uses SDN to shrink interconnection lead times from months to minutes

A prominent investment advisor says there is still plenty of opportunity for smaller players.

For the first time, a colocation offering will be sold on the AWS Marketplace, but does QTS really have the tiger by the tail?