What is your company doing to balance high data center uptime with manageable facilities costs? If you’re like many medium to large organizations, you’re considering wholesale colocation facilities as an alternative to traditional outsource data centers.

Although opinions on the definition of wholesale colocation facilities vary, they share common characteristics:

Reundant data center power
Data center cooling redundancy
Hardened data center buildings
Fire suppression
Security
A real estate approach to data center space

Many IT organizations benefit by solving the facilities problem separately from their IT issues. They have the expertise in-house to manage IT. But they’d rather outsource the data center facilities problems to experts. Data center compliance and certification issue can also be handled by the outsource computer room facility. This is another area that IT organizations are often happy to outsource.

Lifeline Data Centers, a Midwest colocation facility, offers additional features in its wholesale data center facilities:

Simple pricing model
Pay-as-you grow pricing
Power billed on usage
Carrier neutral data center facilities
No cross-connect fees Private cages or private suites
99.995% data center uptime

Does affordable wholesale colocation sound like it might suit your data center needs? Give Lifeline Data Centers a call at 317.5423.2591.

Just because server differentiation increasingly comes from factors outside the processor doesn’t mean those differences are insignificant. Consider the impressive power and cooling smarts that server vendors are bringing to bear.

Companies face a major challenge reining in the costs of running servers and air conditioning to keep them within thermal specs, because as data centers grow, so do electricity bills. It can cost $25 million to add a megawatt of capacity to a data center, according to industry estimates.

The upshot is that server vendors are integrating power-control technology deep within their boxes. “We’ve built into BladeSystem the ability to throttle pretty much every resource,” says Gary Thome, chief architect of HP’s infrastructure software and blades group, referring to the company’s best-selling blade server line. “We can throttle CPUs, voltage-regulator modules, memory, fans, power supplies, all the way down to trying to keep the power consumed as low as possible at any given time.”

These management smarts extend beyond each server to the chassis as a whole. “We have the ability to put power supplies into low-power mode, and then shed power onto other supplies while still maintaining redundancy,” Thome says. This lets the power suppliers that are running do so at high efficiency, but it goes beyond that. “We have variable-speed fans. Plus, the fans are set up in a zone, so if one part of the chassis is running hot, those fans will run faster, and on another part of the chassis, the fans will run slower.”

more of the Information Week article from Alexander Wolfe

Colocation power costs (the cost of power in an outsource data center facility) can make a big difference in your overall IT budget. The raw cost of power varies throughout the country. Midwest colocation provider Lifeline Data Centers pays Indianapolis Power and Light $.055 per kW/hr. East and west coast colocation facilities pay double that cost of power.

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.

I have been working with an old friend for many months, investigating his alternatives in moving out of his existing outsourced computer room facility and into Lifeline Data Centers. His existing outsource computer room facility was chosen by a predecessor. The existing provider has a number of features that are problematic for my old friend:

Not a carrier neutral data center – The existing provider sells company circuits over all others. There is a premium for the clients to buy circuits directly from the carriers, and there are only three choices other than the providers circuits.

Colocation-owned point-to-point circuits – The client has been expanding and has purchased point-to-point circuits from the colocation provider. This has essentially locked him into the colo provider because it would be so expensive to exit these contracts, which all have differing termination dates.

Cross-connect fees – The client pays monthly add-on fees for the circuits that are directly with the carrier. With eight circuits, these add up to about $600 per month.

No data center power redundancy – The colocation provider has a single power feed from the public utility. Even though they advertise multiple UPS and PDUs (this cracks me up), the reality is that they have experienced multiple outages because of the lack of data center redundancy. My friend needs 99.995% uptime. But my friend has no sensible way to get out of his contracts without paying exorbitant termination fees.

No hardened data center facilities – The provider has concrete walls and a steel decked roof. A tornado would suck the roof right off the building. Does that make sense?

So what’s the point? Be careful when you select an outsource data center provider. Don’t let your vendor gain a choke hold on you and your business. What should you be looking for?

• Carrier neutral data centers
• No cross connect fees
• Data center power redundancy
• Fair, simple data center pricing model
• Hardened data center facilities

Looking for a better alternative? Call Lifeline Data Centers at 317.423.2591.

Is outsource data center space a better alternative than infrastructure as a service? Many of Lifeline Data Centers newer clients are second generation outsource data center users. They are moving out of the cloud, or out of another data center and into Lifeline. Their reasons for moving fall into a few categories:

Infrastructure as a service was a good solution at startup, but became too expensive to use as the client grew and needed more resources.

The cost of downtime is high and the clients have experienced data center downtime with their current outsource data center or cloud computing provider.

Data center certifications and data center compliance were difficult or impossible to evaluate/audit in a cloud-based environment.

Clients experienced performance issues that were difficult or impossible to isolate in a fully-hosted, cloud- based environment.

Clients do the math and determine that leasing/buying hardware and placing it in a facility with a sensible data center pricing model is a less expensive alternative.

Clients have had some costly downtime pain and want to take back control of their environments to guarantee that they have hardware, software and data center redundancy where it counts.

Clients realize that what they really need is a hybrid model that includes both outsource data center space and infrastructure as a service/software as a service.

Why are they choosing Lifeline Data Centers over other providers for their outsource computer room space?

Flexibility – clients can buy shared space or private cages, and can purchase extra space for growth without paying a penalty.

Uptime – Lifeline provides 99.995% uptime, the same levels as Uptime Institute certified tier IV data center facilities. And Lifeline’s hardened data centers are F5 tornado resistant.

Data center pricing model – Lifeline has a simple pricing model that separates floor space, per rack charges and power utilization. This appeals to clients who need incremental growth and easy forecasting of future costs.

Carrier neutral data center with no cross connect fees – Lifeline offers access to 15 carriers with no monthly cross-connect fees. Many clients find that the cross-connect fee savings can pay for their outsource data center space.

Data center power costs – Lifeline’s two Midwest colocation facilities deliver low power costs and pay-as you-use-it pricing.

Is outsource data center space a better alternative than infrastructure as a service? It depends, of course, on the nature of your business needs. For affordable colocation, call Lifeline Data Centers at 317.423.2591 to learn more about your best alternatives for outsource data center and cloud computing data center options to take advantage of the best of both worlds.

In the Midwest, the biggest risk of natural disaster is tornado. Does your data center or Midwest colocation provider have F5 tornado resistant data center facilities?

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

Who is Indy’s largest data center? In the last few weeks, many of my friends, Lifeline Data Centers’ clients and prospects have asked me this question. The reason they’re asking is because another Midwest colocation provider has been advertising in press releases and pay-per-click as “Indy’s largest datacenter.”

Does it really matter? I can understand why you might use the size of a data center as a starting point for selection. Here is a list of other key issues you should also consider:

• Does the provider deliver 99.995 data center uptime (less than 27 minutes of downtime per year)?
• Is the data center pricing model easy to understand?
• How does the outsource data center charge you for power and cooling?
• Does the provider offer hardened data center facilities, built to withstand tornadoes and other disasters?
• How is the data center power redundancy engineered? Are there single points of failure?
• How many telecommuncations providers are available?
• Does the outsource data center charge monthly cross connect fees?
• Are private cages, shared space, office and staging space available?
• Are the critical power. cooling, and security systems maintained in-house or outsourced?
• How long has the data center provider been in business?
• Who owns the outsource data center? Are the owners involved in daily operations?
• How much data center expertise does the outsource data center team possess?

So who is Indianapolis’ largest data center? It depends, of course, on how you measure it.

• Data center square feet occupied
• Data center square feet available
• Campus size
• Data center square feet available with room for expansion

Here are the facts about Lifeline Data Centers:

• Two locations
• 70,000 square feet of data center floor space available in existing buildings
• 30,000 square feet of data center floor space occupied
• Downtown building, along with a 41-acre second campus
• Room for 260,000 square feet of data center, 300,000 square feet of office

Looking to improve your computer system reliability and reduce costs? Moving your data center? Find out more about affordable colocation. Call Lifeline at 317.423.2591.

What are the cost components of your data center? How are you spending money to maintain your computing environment?

In-house data centers spend money on

• Floor space or real estate
• Power to the servers and network equipment (sometimes untracked)
• Power to the air conditioners needed to cool the server and network equipment (often untracked)
• Generators, power conditioning/UPS, HVAC systems
• Security systems
• Maintenance of the generators, HVAC and UPS ad security equipment
• FTE support for the facilities side of IT
• Bandwidth and transport: limited choices and retail pricing from telecom carriers

Companies using outsourced data centers often spend on

• Rack space in shared environments
• Power costs based on something other than usage
• Expensive private suites
• Bandwidth and transport: limited choices and retail pricing from telecom carriers

Regardless, companies often purchase inferior services:

• No hardened data center facilities, or facilities not built to withstand a regional disaster
• Limits on power per rack, cooling and space that can drive up future costs
• Significant single points of failure in the power and cooling systems
• Time and money for internal IT resources to solve facilities and physical plant problems

Lifeline Data Centers is different. Lifeline offers outsource data center facilities with:

• Data center expertise
• High data center high uptime
• A simple data center pricing model that allows you to pay as you grow
• Mulitiple carriers in a carrier neutral data center
• No cross connect fees

Call Lifeline Data Centers at 317.423.2591 to learn how you can reduce costs while improving data center uptime.

One of our new data center customers is a cloud service provider. Correction: most of Lifeline Data Centers’ new customers are cloud services providers. But this particular customer took advantage of a specific approach to cost savings, resulting in tens of thousands of dollars per year. I’ll refer to this approach, this space between, as Lifeline.

This customer is a cloud services company. Back at start up a few years ago, the company leveraged another cloud provider for the IT infrastructure: server, network and security equipment. This let the company start up fast and provide for future scalability.

But there was a problem. The company became successful. They were acquiring new clients, generating new revenue and scaling their application. But the costs of scaling were too high. The cloud infrastructure pricing model meant that more sales growth would result in lower and lower margins.

So they took a step back and re-evaluated the infrastructure. It wasn’t that complex; it boiled down to VMware, a few servers, a SAN, switches, security appliances and a recovery model. With a few hours of design time, they came up with a modular approach, designed to scale one rack of equipment at a time. The design was a low-cost, over-engineered solution that was resilient enough to take multiple failures and not miss a beat. What they really needed was a flexible, affordable colocation facility to house these racks.

Here is the list of outsource data center requirements they developed:

High uptime: 99.995%: equal to tier IV data center uptime standards of 27 minutes of downtime per year or less

Hardened data center facilities operated by experts who build to the highest data center certifications and resiliency standards

Access to multiple carriers without monthly cross connect fees: Multiple carriers allowed them to negotiate more flexible contracts with multiple carriers. Multiple carriers allows them to control their uptime and service levels. No monthly cross connect fees means lower monthly costs and no upper limit on carrier diversity.

Data center pricing model that is incremental, or pay as you grow

Midwest data center for low, predictable costs of power

The company chose Lifeline Data Centers because Lifeline was flexible and had all of these features. The cloud services company found better profitability by replacing a cloud infrastructure with their own infrastructure at Lifeline. This “space between” cloud computing and the data center may hold lower costs, better service levels or higher profitability for your organization, too.

If your data center is in-house, you may want to consider outsource data center as well. Infrastructure and cloud computing PDF whitepapers don’t talk enough about flexibility when it comes to a company’s physical data center facilities. Check out our whitepaper on outsourcing a data center.

If you’re a cloud service provider, or an IT professional looking to improve uptime ad reduce data center costs, call 317.423.2591 to find out how you benefit from this “space between.”

To help combat increasing data center energy consumption, utilities and energy-efficiency program administrators are offering financial incentives for data centers to become more efficient. And there appears to be a real opportunity for many data center managers to reap financial rewards for measured energy savings.

A good starting point to identify available data center utility rebate programs is the Consortium for Energy Efficiency (CEE). CEE is a group of efficiency program administrators from the U.S. and Canada that works with over 100 members to promote energy-efficiency opportunities in data centers.

“CEE members offer prescriptive IT or data center measures to their business customers (a per-kilowatt-hour incentive) or provide program assistance to data center managers for a specific savings action that they might take,” said Jason Erwin, senior program manager at CEE.

more of the SearchDataCenter article from John Parkinson