Your other option is to use outsource data center facilities to house your enterprise data center. Outsource data center facilities come in many shapes and sizes. Here are a few of the most common:

Managed services providers – Large providers such as IBM, HP, and Sungard offer data center space along with managed services such as IT support, network, server and storage hardware. These providers are well suited to replace some or all of your IT staff, along with the burden of maintaining hardware and a data center. Profitability for these providers is often based on managed services, so these managed services providers will be keenly interested in providing their IT services to your organization.

Telecommunications providers – Telecommunications providers like AT&T, and TW Telecom started the colocation business. They sold extra space in their central offices to companies that needed more reliable power. Costs vary for these facilities, and the “rule book” tends to be fairly restrictive. There are often limits on power, space per rack, and access to other telecommunications providers. Some have ventured into the managed services business to generate additional revenues.

Wholesale colocation facilities – The simplest offering, wholesale colocation offers hardened data centers, redundant power and cooling, along with physical security, and fire suppression. I call wholesale data centers “high-tech landlords” because they offer real estate-like services to your organization. Wholesale colocation offers expertise in power and cooling. These are areas of expertise that most IT organizations lack. You have the flexibility to choose who does the IT services, whether it your own staff or a third party provider. Wholesale data centers also offer flexibility for growth and change inside the data center. A select few of the best providers are carrier neutral data centers with a dozen carriers or more that charge no monthly cross-connect fees. Watch for hidden costs on power utilization. You should be able to pay incrementally as you grow your power utilization and rack space.

Regardless of the type of outsource data center you select, make sure you ask questions about:

• Power and cooling systems: Do they have two of everything? You’ll be surprised at how many lack basic data center redundancy and reliability.
• SAS 70 data center certification: Is data center compliance is affecting your vendors and clients? You can “buy” a level of compliance in an outsource data center.
• Colocation power costs: What are you paying per kilowatt hour of utilization? Are their limits on power per rack? Are there hidden charges for more power? Your data center power costs can double based on the geographic location you select.

.

Do wholesale colocation facilities sound like they might fit your needs? For affordable colocation, call me at Lifeline Data Centers, 317.423.2591.

If your company relies on your computer systems to generate revenue, deliver services, or manufacture your product, your computer room facilities can be a source or worry. You spend lots of money on power, cooling, equipment and labor to keep your most important computer systems up, running and reliable.

But are you wasting time and resources on your data center when you could be spending less money for more reliability?

If you care about uptime, you probably have a generator for your computer room. You may have one or more power conditioning systems with battery backup to protect from a power outage. If you are in the Midwest, you probably have a hardened data center that can withstand an F5 tornado. Your company has likely spent significant capital dollars on your computer room, all to improve the reliability (data center uptime) of your key computer systems.

But is it enough? The answer is another question. How many minutes, hours or days can your systems be down? 99.995% uptime is 28 minutes of downtime per year or less. But it takes two of everything (N+N data center redundancy) to deliver 99.995% uptime. That means TWO electrical feeds from the power company, TWO generators, TWO power conditioning systems, and two air conditioners, to start.

Companies uptime requirements have changed. Even small companies “bet their business” on their computer systems. Will your company spend the money to build a 99.995% level of reliability?

If your company needs 99.995% uptime, or anything close to that level, consider affordable colocation providers: carrier neutral, outsource data center facilities with shared space, private cages, and no cross connect fees. The cost per month may be less than your spending now. The reliability and data center uptime will likely be higher than what you can build. Lifeline Data Centers is at 317.423.2591. Email us if you’d like more information on improving your data center uptime.

If your cost of downtime is low, don’t waste your time reading this post. It isn’t for you.

If your cost of downtime is lost credibility, lost revenues, lost profits, and/or lost clients, what can you do to reduce your risks?

Use the 80/20 principle. Power and cooling issues account for a majority of prolonged outages in your organization’s data center. You can reduce the risk of power outages with data center power redundancy: two utility feeds, two generators, two UPS systems feeding your critical systems. You can reduce the risks of cooling failures by employing two or more air conditioning systems to cool your equipment, along with two or more ways to remove hot air from your data center environment.

The problem is that building data center facilities with these features is extremely expensive. The capital costs of a 1500 foot data center can easily exceed $1 million. But a few select outsource data center facilities can solve downtime problems at prices comparable to your existing enterprise data center.

Compare outsource computer room facilities with the cost of operating your own. Look for data centers that have N+N (2N) redundancy. Many outsource facilities claim to have data center power redundancy and multiple cooling systems. Make sure you’re getting what you pay for.

Don’t overthink this. Thanks to the lower costs of telecom, It’s no longer about where your critical systems reside. It’s mostly a math problem. Compare the cost of downtime plus the costs of operating your existing computer room to outsource data center facilities. You may be surprised.

High availability data center facilities with 99.995% uptime or better can solve many downtime problems. Affordable colocation facilities (outsource data centers) can help you manage your costs while improving your data center uptime.

The IDC survey of 300 large European businesses found that one in four organisations were managing their servers and storage manually, leading to much higher costs compared with organisations that used some tools.

Only 14% of organisations had a fully integrated management framework. The research found that only 30% of companies saw datacentre operational cost as a priority, with 25% concerned specifically about software licence costs.

Nathaniel Martinez, programme director in IDC’s Systems and Infrastructure group, said, “Datacentre managers are much more concerned with finding suppliers that can address the security and availability problems they are experiencing than with ensuring that their datacentre meets the requirements of their business.

More of the Computer Weekly article from Cliff Saran

How does this happen? Many outsource data centers sell private label bandwidth and point-to-point circuits. If these contracts are purchased over time, there is no single contract termination date and it becomes costly to move and maintain these redundant contracts.

How can you avoid it? Choose a carrier neutral data center with no cross-connect fees, so you can purchase circuits directly from the carriers and avoid any monthly add-on fees.

Your outsource computer room provider should earn your business. If they’re not giving you the features that you need, i.e. 99.995% uptime (equal to tier IV data centers), hardened data center facilities, data center certifications and affordable colocation, you have alternatives. If you’re looking for a great solution, give Lifeline Data Centers a call at 317.423.2591.

Hardened data center facilities are reinforced concrete structures with roofing engineered to withstand 135mph plus winds. Lifeline Data Centers offers such facilities at both of their locations. If data center downtime is costly to you, consider outsource data center as an alternative to in-house computer rooms.

Hardened data centers are not the only advantage of outsource computer rooms. Data center capital costs can run easily reach hundreds of thousands of dollars. Maintaining data center certifications and compliance can create an additional FTE burden inside your company.

But be careful. Data center pricing models vary greatly. Look for access to multiple telecom carriers in a carrier neutral data center facility. Look for a provider that charges no cross-connect fees. Flexibility is the key; more choices are better.

If you think outsource data center might be a good solution for your company, give me a call at Lifeline Data Centers, 317.423.2591

What stuff am I talking about?

• Data center power redundancy – dual utility power feeds, dual generators, and dual UPS systems for every cabinet of equipment in the data center.
• Data center cooling redundancy – dual cooling systems
• Hardened data center facilities – F5 tornado resistant buildings, engineered to withstand regional disasters
• Multiple telecommunications carriers – two or more choices for telecom circuits so you can pick the best carrier for your bandwidth and transport needs

You might be surprised at how rare it is, both in internal and outsource data centers, to have true N+N data center power redundancy. True power and cooling redundancy in the data center provides for 99.995% uptime (27 minutes of downtime per year or less). That is the same level of uptime as a tier IV data center. That’s because N+N data center redundancy (also known as 2N redundancy) allows for failures of equipment and for concurrent maintainability with no data center down time.

Why can’t you build these features into your data center? Or why won’t you? Data center capital costs are the number one reason. Generators cost hundreds of thousands of dollars. A second utility power feed into a facility can easily cost a quarter of a million dollars. Will the CFO sign off on such large capital expenditures when he knows your company can rent better facilities for less money?

Lifeline Data Centers provides affordable colocation facilities to keep uptime high and costs under control. And Lifeline is a carrier neutral data center with no cross connect fees. Need data center? Call Lifeline at 317.423.2591.

Mike Andrea, director of the strategic directions group at the company, explained at AFCOM’s Data Center World show in Nashville last week how his company saved about $30 million in copper costs when building its new 65,000-square-foot facility.

more of the SearchDataCenter article from Mark Fontechhio

The survey of senior decision makers with responsibility for their companies’ data center strategies was conducted by Campos Research & Analysis for Digital Realty. Among the key findings:

* 83 percent of respondents are planning data center expansions in the next 12 to 24 months;
* 36 percent of respondents have definite plans to make those expansions during 2010;
* 73 percent of respondents plan to add two or more facilities as part of their data center expansions;

more of the Data Center Knowledge article from Rich Miller

That is why I am extremely happy to announce my involvement with the University of Missouri in the launch of a Not-For-Profit Data Center specific organization. You might have read the formal announcement by Dave Ohara who launched the news via his industry website, GreenM3. Dave is another of of those industry insiders who has long been perplexed by the lack of movement and initiative we have had on some great ideas and stand outs doing great work. More importantly, it doesn’t stop there. We have been able to put together quite a team of industry heavy-weights to get involved in this effort. Those announcements are forthcoming, and when they do, I think you will get a sense of the type of sea-change this effort could potentially have.

more of the Loose Bolts Blog post from Mike Manos