I just read this story about a colocation facility that was robbed for the fourth time in just two years, and I had to laugh at the absurdity of it.

C I Host provides more than 250,000 consumers and small- and medium-sized business in 190 countries with managed web hosting, dedicated server and colocation services.

According to one report, “During the robbery, C I Host’s night manager was repeatedly tazered and struck with a blunt instrument. After violently attacking the manager, the intruders stole equipment belonging to C I Host and its customers…At least 20 data servers were stolen, said Patrick Camden, deputy director of news affairs for the Chicago Police Department.”

The company’s Family Colocation offering promises to house equipment in a secured 144 sq. ft suite inside one of C I Host’s data centers.

more of the SearchDataCenter article from Bridget Botelho

Late last year a high-street financial institution experienced a power failure at an IT centre in Yorkshire, shutting down cash machines for a few hours, as well as undermining retail transactions and online banking. This incident was only the latest in a telling series of power failures affecting UK organizations including ISPs, hospitals and financial trading firms, highlighting the growing need for effective assessment of risks and disaster scenarios. This encompasses effective IT infrastructure planning, provision of power supplies and environmental concerns influencing organizations’ daily operations.

The scope for knock-on effects such as system failure and critical data loss has been intensified in recent years by the expansion, complexity and power constraints on ICT infrastructures as ‘UK plc’ migrates an increasing proportion of business processes and systems online. In 2008 Gartner made a global prediction that half of data centres will start to run out of effective power supplies. However, local conditions often present more immediate difficulties.

more of the Continuity Central article from Chris Smith

Is Indianapolis the right place for my disaster recovery colocation? 

Colocation (also known as outsource data center) comes in all shapes and sizes.  Studies by multiple research organizations find that Midwest colocation continues to be a great value.  Every organization’s needs are different.  Do you need the disaster recovery to provide virtual server images, physical IT and network equipment, or just be a "high-tech landlord?"

The largest data center provider in Indiana, Lifeline Data Centers,   offers a unique combination of features that are well-suited for the IT-savvy organization looking for disaster recovery colocation:

• 99.995% uptime for all of your equipment
• Private cages or shared space
• Flexible data center pricing models for forecasting growth and change
• Multiple telecommunications carriers in a carrier-neutral environment
• No monthly cross-connect fees
• Low data center power costs billed on usage
• Multiple data center certification levels for government, vendor, and client regulations
• Private office space and workgroup recovery space for your emergency needs
• An owner-operated facility with electrical, HVAC and fire suppression experts on staff

Why not consider Indianapolis for disaster recovery colocation, or for your enterprise data center?

For companies located in Chicago, disaster recovery projects may benefit from affordable colocation options in Indianapolis, just three hours away.

CIO strategies that include outsource data center facilities are saving companies money and improving uptime.  The cost of downtime is getting higher for companies of all sizes.  Colocation pricing models can help companies move out of the capital expenses associated with building and maintaining internal enterprise data centers .

Whether you use affordable colocation in Indianapolis for primary data center space or a disaster recovery center, you’ll be sure to get a great value, high uptime, and access to plenty of connectivity.

If your company is considering the use of a colocation facility, you have dozens of choices.  Midwest colocation has become very popular because of a few factors:

• the Midwest is less prone to natural disasters
• power costs are low compared to the coasts
• the central location offers fiber density and therefore telecom choices

Many companies consider Chicago colocation because of easy travel access and telecom density.  Yet Chicago colocation prices are almost always higher than similar data center facilities within a few hours. 

What are your true requirements?  If you’re using colocation for your enterprise data center, you may need carrier neutral data center facilities so you have multiple telecom provider choices.  If you’re using colocation for a disaster recovery center, your requirements may be slightly different.  Chances are you are looking for:

• Affordable colocation
• Hardened data center
• SAS 70 data center compliance
• Carrier neutral facilities; plenty of telecom choices with no hidden fees

Chicago colocation is expensive for a few reasons:  high real estate costs, union labor, higher demand density of business and a higher cost of living. 

Lifeline Data Centers in Indianapolis provides large data centers for companies looking to outsource their computer room facilities.  Lifeline has been providing affordable colocation in their hardened data centers since 2001.  Lifeline handles all the power, cooling, hardening, security and compliance issues so that you can concentrate on your IT and your business.  If you’re looking for affordable colocation, call Lifeline at 317.423.2591.

So you finally have budget approval for your IT disaster recovery project.  How do you choose a disaster recovery center?

SearchDataCenter’s Russell Olsen published an article on geographic diversity that sheds light on the question "how far is far enough" when it comes to your disaster recovery colocation or data center.

Choosing a data recovery site is difficult because there are no clear standards in this area. The closest we get to a standard is a white paper released by the Federal Reserve in response to Sept. 11.

Early versions of this white paper discussed minimum distances of approximately 200 miles, but were sharply criticized for being technically impossible for some systems due to latency and the replication demands. The paper settled on "an appropriate level of geographic diversity between primary and backup sites for back-office operations and data centers." That’s not a lot of help for those of us who have been tasked with this responsibility.

SearchDataCenter article