A CIO strategy that includes flexible data center facilities can help organizations through changes in the economy, lines of business, revenues and profitability.

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.

Is your data in a F5 tornado resistant data center? The risk of tornado is the biggest threat for Midwest data center facilities. Whether it’s Midwest colocation or in-house data centers, how do companies protect against the threat of tornado?

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.

Are hardened data center facilities protecting your mission critical systems? If you have a data center in the Midwest, is the building where your data center is located an F5 tornado resistant data center?

Organizations that have a high cost of downtime try to reach the goal of a zero downtime data center. These organizations minimize downtime by employing tier IV data center facilities, or facilities built using tier IV guidelines. Design considerations include:

-N+1 or N+N data center redundancy including multiple power feeds, generators, and UPS systems
-Other data center redundancy including dual telecom entrances and multiple HVAC systems
-Hardened data center facilities, designed to withstand regional disasters.

If the risk of tornado or earthquake is high, and the cost of downtime is also high, why would you put your mission critical facilities in anything but a hardened data center? If you use outsource data center facilities, watch out for steel deck roofs and office buildings converted to data centers. Concrete walls are fine, but if the steel deck roof peels off in a tornado, your systems are at risk.

Lifeline Data Center uses only concrete reinforced buildings. If you’re interested in 99.995% uptime SLAs with NO downtime in the last five years, call Lifeline at 317.423.2591.

99.995% uptime equals 27 minutes of downtime per year or less. But what it really means is the level of credibility your company has in the marketplace.

We live in a real-time world. Customer facing computer systems sell your products. Manufacturing systems ensure production and quality in the products you make. Internal systems keep employees productive. Minutes of downtime can cost thousands of dollars. Data center downtime costs your company revenue, profits and credibility.

So how do you achieve high levels of uptime?

First, understand the cost of downtime. What does it cost your company to have critical systems down? Downtime is often calculated per application. Knowing the cost helps you focus efforts on data center uptime where it counts most.

Second, make sure your data center facilities have at least 2 of every critical component. This is known as 2N or N+N data center redundancy. Anything less than two utility feeds, two generators, two UPS systems and two HVAC systems puts you at risk for data center downtime. You can also improve uptime by using hardened data center facilities, built to withstand the regional risks. F5 tornado resistant data centers are important in the midwest.

Third, build your systems and applications using the same 2N architecture to protect against failure and to allow for concurrent maintainability.

Your data center uptime is your system reliability. Your system reliability is your credibility in the marketplace. Can’t afford the data center capital costs of 2N architecture? Use the outsource data center facilities of Lifeline Data Centers. Call us 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

The stuff you can’t (or won’t) build into your data center could be the cause of a future outage.

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.

We’re hearing more stories and seeing more companies move their infrastructure out of a virtual environment and back into a physical environment using high-reliability outsourced data centers.

Why are these companies making the switch? Long-term costs. Virtual environments often charge by the resource, i.e. disk, processors, number of servers, and SAN throughput. Companies using virtual infrastructure are finding that the cost of these resources over time becomes too high. If the company is a SaaS provider, the costs eat into profits. Companies using virtual infrastructure for internal IT see an ever-escalating monthly operating expense.

So these companies spend some time evaluating their infrastructure and come up with a suitable hardware/software architecture. It’s much easier these days to build in reliability and redundancy. The companies are using hypervisor software like VMware, multiple physical servers, redundant SANs, dual switches and dual firewalls. They end up with an architecture that can survive multiple failures with no interruptions in service. And often times the hardware/software architecture pays for itself in one year when compared to their virtual environment. Long-term costs go down, and the company ends up having more control over their infrastructure.

The new equipment needs a home. Companies are using affordable colocation rather than expensive IT managed services providers. What are they looking for?

• 99.995% uptime – 27 minutes of downtime per year or less, equal to that of an Uptime Institute certified tier IV data center
• Fair pricing – a simple, easy-to-understand data center pricing model helps with forecasting and incremental growth
• Hardened data center facilities – buildings that are F5 tornado resistant
• Carrier neutral data centers – many choices on telecommunications providers for bandwidth and transport
• No cross connect fees – no monthly add-on fees for connections directly to the carriers
• Data center certifications and compliance – SAS 70 Type II data centers, TIA 942 compliant data centers

What are the savings? Do the math. You may find out that you’re spending too much on your cloud computing data center’s virtual environment.

Do you need to drive the costs out of your application delivery model? Call Lifeline Data Centers at 317.423.2591.

I talked to a company last week who has been thinking about moving their data center. They have been talking with us for months about moving from another outsource data center into Lifeline. The company is an Internet Services Provider. All of their products are Internet-centric services. The company delivers Internet, web hosting, and applications to their clients.

The company was interested in Lifeline Data Centers for a few reasons. First, they could aggregate bandwidth from multiple carriers with no monthly cross-connect fees. This let them keep bandwidth costs low and maintain good margins. They also liked Lifeline’s data center power redundancy: Lifeline’s N+N power and HVAC configuration could support their needs for high uptime. One of the company’s owners liked the idea of Lifeline “always keeping an eye on the power.”

Last week, I spoke to them again. Some parts of their business are in decline, and other parts are growing. To cut costs, they are moving all their equipment out of the old outsource data center and into their new office building.

Are they really cutting costs?

What would a prolonged power outage cost this company ? ALL of the services they deliver rely on power, Internet services and application availability. Will their customers stay customers if a backhoe digs up the power line in front of the new office building and knocks out power for 8 hours? Or will the clients look elsewhere at the hundreds of vendors offering the same services for lower prices?

What is the company’s cost of losing a deal to a competitive Internet Services Provider? Will the competition win the deal because they have data center compliance, certifications, F5 tornado resistant data center buildings, and more telecom choices?

Who’s keeping an eye on your power? Who’s making sure that your computer room reliability is better than your competition? Who’s helping you take care of your clients?

Do you have hardened data center facilities for disaster recovery purposes? What are your true risks? How does your disaster recovery center protect your business?

Gulfport Municipal Court streamlined its infrastructure after Hurricane Katrina destroyed numerous court documents, investing in a digital imaging solution and storing data in multiple sites to prevent such a disastrous loss from ever happening again.

When Hurricane Katrina roared its murderous path into Mississippi and Louisiana in August 2005, the howling winds and punishing rains destroyed lives, homes and businesses—and temporarily blinded Lady Justice in Gulfport, Miss.

The storm, which caused more than 1,800 deaths and more than $81 billion in damages nationwide, tore the roof off the Gulfport Municipal Court, water-logging files and destroying the walls that housed them. Years of supporting documentation in criminal and civil complaints became sodden and illegible.

more of the Baseline article from Alison Diana