What is the cost of downtime?
How many hours would it take for the company leadership to be concerned? Cost: discomfort.
How long would it take for your customers to start complaining? Cost: grave concern.
How many hours before your customers turn to your competition to serve their needs? Cost: real revenues and profits.

Most large companies evaluate how much downtime they can take per computer application. The customer-facing ordering system may be more important than the accounting system it feeds, but less important than e-mail. Companies create a matrix of applications and levels of criticality. They use this matrix to develop their data center requirements. If 99.995% uptime (28 minutes of downtime per year or less) is required, many companies outsource the computer room facilities to affordable colocation facilities.
These computer room outsourcers offer data center power redundancy, cooling redundancy, and data center certifications. An ever-growing list of federal and state regulations is driving many companies to outsource computer room facilities as an easy way to “make the grade.”

Companies have lots of choices when it comes to outsource data center. Many savvy companies prefer wholesale colocation. Wholesale colocation offers floor/rack space, power and cooling. Some wholesale colocation facilities are high availability, carrier neutral data centers that offer a unique ability to deliver easy-to-change configurations and access to multiple telecommunications carriers with no cross connect fees.

Need better reliability in your computer systems? Need to reduce your downtime? Talk to the high uptime data center professionals at Lifeline Data Centers, 317.423.2591.

OMG! I would not be able to process credit card payments, it will cost me untold profit… OMG!

That is more like it, because we all know that if your organization is truly practicing on a daily basis good information security you would be compliant to PCI (just missing QSA certification of course), and you would most likely be in compliance with just about any compliance or regulatory requirements your organization might have thrust upon it.

If you follow and actually practice, perform and maintain a best practice, state of art, best of breed, call it what you will, information security program, you would basically be doing all the right things to become compliant if required. The difference between being secure and being compliant is an organizations maturity model. Practice daily good information security and you will basically be compliant (good maturity). Implement or improve information security for compliance requirements, such as PCI (bad maturity).

More of the CIO.com article from Michael Gough

Ten years ago, organizations that wanted to protect their enterprise data center from disaster had few choices. Back then, the mainframe was usually the centerpiece of the disaster recovery plan. The disaster recovery plan for the server environment was managed in-house with backup tapes and software. Some companies included servers into to their mainframe disaster recovery contracts, usually at very expensive yearly rates.

But times have changed, and new technologies are helping companies build customized disaster recovery plans that blend

Today, two key technologies are enabling companies to build cost-effective do-it yourself disaster recovery centers:

Virtualization: VMware, Hyper-V, Xen, and a number of open source platforms are allowing for multiple logical servers on a physical server. With additional tools for moving and replicating these server images across multiple physical servers, virtualization enables companies to not only protect against a prolonged outage, but to allow for routine server maintenance with little or no downtime.

SAN replicaton: near real-time or real time data replication comes standard on many SANs. Bandwidth requirements are lower and reliability is excellent on most.

These two enabling technologies need the right environment in which to operate. Reliable outousrce data center facilites are available everywhere. But few offer 99.995% uptime. Carrier choices exist in most data centers. But a few offer carrier neutral data center space with no cross-connect fees. Hardened data center facilities are more difficult to find. Data center certifications and compliance can play an important role in your choice.

Building a customized solution is a little more complex than buying all of your disaster recovery services from a single vendor. But putting your own equipment in an affordable colocation facility (outsource data center) that offers multiple carrier choices and no cross connect fees can not only improve recovery times, it can significantly reduce costs. Want to learn more? Call Lifeline Data Centers at 17.423.2591.

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.

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

Endpoint security gets complicated

The Ponemon Institute’s “2010 Access Governance Trends Survey,” which asked 728 IT practitioners about their procedures and outcomes in setting up access to information resources, found the situation worsening over the past two years. In comparison to a similar survey done by Ponemon two years ago, this year’s survey found 87% believed individuals had too much access to information systems, up 9% from 2008.

And in a new question asked this year about how use of cloud computing fits with access-control strategies, 73% of respondents said adoption of cloud-based applications is enabling business users to circumvent existing access policies.Cloud-based services “are often purchased directly by business units without consideration of access governance,” says the 2010 Access Governance Trends Survey, published Monday. The survey was sponsored by Aveksa.

more of the CIO.com article from Ellen Messmer

Flexible data center facilities help CIOs add racks, power density and temporary systems as needed. Outsource colocation and outsource data center facilities can deliver this flexibility as an operating expense rather than capital costs.

Outsource data center facilities that offer private cage space and separate square footage/active rack charges allow organizations to build for growth and change.

Carrier neutral data centers with no cross connect fees and help control long-term telecom costs and improve network reliability

Building a hardened data center with 99.995% uptime (equal to Tier IV data center ratings) is cost-prohibitive for most companies. Leasing space in an affordable colocation facility with 99.995% uptime is easy.

Maintaining data center compliance is expensive. Data center certifications can cost hundreds of thousands of dollars to implement and tens of thousands to maintain. Outsource data centers let you outsource data center compliance, such as SAS 70 data center certification, TIA-942 compliant data centers, HIPAA, FDA, FISMA and other regulations.

The most flexible Midwest colocation provider, Lifeline Data Centers, can help you make your data center flexibility strategy happen. Call 317.423.2591.

The most common approach for protecting against tornadoes is to use a hardened data center, built of steel-reinforced concrete. Underground entrances for power and telecommunications are important. Absence of flood plain is important. TIA-942 compliant data centers adhere to all of the important hardening guidelines. Is your data center TI-942 compliant?

Looking for affordable colocation in hardened data center facilities with 99.995% uptime and data center certifications? Call Lifeline Data Centers in Indianapolis at 317.423.2591.

Customers want to know that they can trust their data center provider to meet the most rigorous controls standards, demanding accountability and transparency. The American Institute of Certified Public Accountants (AICPA) created a “Statement of Auditing Standards” certification termed “SAS 70” to help customers know that their data center provider has effective internal controls in place for managing the design, implementation and execution of customer information.

The basic certification is called SAS 70 type I, which an independent service auditor assigns after a thorough review of the degree to which a data center provider fairly represents its services in regards to the operational controls that have been implemented to meet set objectives.

more of the Data Center Knowledge article

But more importantly, how does the outsource data center pricing model charge you for power? The fairest way would be to charge based on actual usage. At Lifeline, we charge $.175 per kW/hr based on actual power draw. $.055 is for power to the IT equipment, $.055 is for associated data center cooling for the IT equipment, and $.065 is overhead associated with running multiple utility feeds, multiple generators, and multiple UPS systems for each and every client.

Colocation pricing models vary; be careful.

If you’re considering outsource data center facilities, you know that data center uptime and data center certifications are important. But the cost of data center power can affect the long-term IT budget. Choose an outsource colocation facility that charges fairly with low power costs. Choose Lifeline Data Centers.

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.