In Part 1, I talked about the most important applications in your business, also know as your mission critical applications. I covered reasons that many of these mission critical applications are ill-behaved and require special care and feeding in your enterprise data center. These reasons include high bandwidth requirements on the headquarters or wide area network, expensive overbuilt servers, and additional hours of maintenance overhead per month.

How do these worst-behaved applications affect your data center requirements?

Bandwidth – Many applications generate large amounts of network traffic for even the smallest user activity. These levels of traffic can cause the applications to perform poorly via the Internet or small remote office connections. These apps can influence your decision on the location of the primary data center. It often seems simplest to place the data center close (in the same building) to your highest number of users. Yet an in-house data center may not fully support your data center uptime requirements.

Interoperability – If your most important applications link up to other important applications, you may be forced to put these applications in the same data center. If your manufacturing system is feeding data to your customer management system and your accounting system, reliability becomes more important, because a small amount downtime can affect three important software systems, not just one.

Souped-up, expensive servers – Experience has taught your IT staff to overbuild server and storage hardware to solve some of the bad behaviors of your mission critical applications. These non-standard configurations can drive up costs. Non-standard configurations are also more difficult to operate in cloud computing environments, forcing the data center to remain physical, instead of virtual.

More Maintenance – More problems mean more maintenance work to solve them. This drives up FTE requirements and makes outsourcing more complex and expensive. Maintenance load can influence location and staff requirements for the data center.

Costly uptime – Problem applications are harder to keep running and often require more technology for high uptime levels. Expensive high uptime technologies like clustering greatly drive up the costs of keeping the application alive and well.

Ill-behaved line-of-business applications influence strategic data center decisions:

Primary data center location – Would your data center be better off in-house, in the cloud, in an outsourced data center facility or a hybrid of all three?

Wide area network design – Where is the hub of the network? How many telecom providers should I use? How much bandwidth do I buy? How can I get the best pricing?

Server hardware ownership and maintenance – Do I buy my own servers for maximum control? Do I use virtual servers in the cloud? Do I use a combination of both?

Maintenance – Does in-house staff do maintenance or do I outsource it?

Good CIO strategy includes a clear understanding of the mission critical applications and their data center requirements.

More CIOs are using these tools to mitigate the risks of their worst-behaved applications:

• Thin application delivery via software by VMware and Citrix to solve bandwidth problems
• Affordable colocation to build in 99.995% uptime on the data center power and cooling
• Cloud computing services like virtual private servers for predictable mission critical applications
• Change management discipline to manage application behaviors and reduce maintenance

Don’t let your worst-behaved applications cause you to make bad decisions about your data center.

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These surveys are providing a picture of strains facing the facilities that cradle the digital economy, as well as the pressure data center and IT managers are under to keep up with demand.

The Uptime Institute, for the first time, recently surveyed 525 data center operators and owners, 71% of whom are in North America. Of respondents, 36% said they will run out of power, cooling and space through 2012.

To meet the need, 40% of the respondents plan to build a new a new data center, and 29% said they would lease additional space in a colocation center. Another 20% said they would move IT workloads to cloud providers.

More of the CIO.com article from Patrick Thibodeau

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Many companies are faced with changes to their computer rooms. Whether they are moving the computer room or trying to expand the space, power and cooling, the choice boils down to spending money on an internal data center or considering outsource data center space, also know as colocation or outsource computer room facilities.

Many factors play into a decision to move a data center off-site. A company’s mission-critical applications must behave well in an off-site data center. The cost of data center downtime affects the decision. Power costs can have great impact. Data center certification and compliance requirements are a factor.

Yet in many businesses, the cost of the data center’s electrical power is rarely assigned to the IT department. Decision makers in the finance and IT departments should consider this hidden cost when evaluating new projects.

For a small business in Indianapolis with:

• one rack of server equipment
• 2 UPS systems
• router
• firewall
• 2 switches
• 30 workstations
• 10 printers

electrical usage is roughly 9 KW/hr. Cooling is another 18 KW/hr for a total of $1167 per month. Approximately $525 per month is for the servers and communications equipment.

Compare this pricing to an outsource data center: $850 per rack per month plus the cost of a telecommunications circuit. Affordable colocation is a reality. By using an outsourcer’s hardened data center, your are protecting your systems from critical downtime. If the provider offers tier IV data center facilities, you’ll also be improving uptime via redundant power and cooling systems.

The idea of using a Midwest colocation provider may be the right choice for your business. Outsource data center facilities offer the advantage of large data center facilities at affordable prices for small business.

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• Risks of natural disaster are lower
• Cost of real estate is lower
• Cost of power and labor is low
• Great access to multiple telecom providers in many areas

So if you’ve decided on Midwest colocation, how do you pick the right outsource data center?  Use your company’s specific needs as your criteria for selection.  Here are a few key criteria that are common to many of our clients:

• Hardened data center facilities – tornado, flood and seismic resistant
• Carrier neutral data center – multiple telecom providers with no cross-connect fees
• Affordable colocation – does the pricing model allow you to grow incrementally without penalties?
• Disaster recovery center facilities – is office space available?  Are there spaces to stage and store equipment?
• Large data center – is there enough available space for you to grow if the need arises?

Not all Midwest colocation providers are alike.  Do your homework and you’ll improve the odds of finding the best facility for your company’s needs.

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Are the data center power costs too high at the company’s primary data center? The cost of power per kilowatt hour can vary greatly from region to region.

Are the costs of data center power too high at the company’s disaster recovery center? You should evaluate the regional costs of power in all data center sites to make sure you that the long-term costs of power make sense. Chicago colocation power costs are some of the highest in the Midwest. Colocation facilities and the associated costs of power vary significantly from region to region.

What are the power costs at wholesale colocation facilities? Companies should clearly understand the wholesale data center provider’s cost of power from the utility and whether that cost varies based on usage.

How does the outsource colocation provider charge for power? This may be the most important question to ask. Many outsource data centers charge by the circuit size rather than by the actual power used. That means the company using the data center is always charged for more power than they actually consume. Companies should look for data centers that bill for power based on actual usage. Companies should also understand how the data center provider bills for the data center cooling power, along with the overhead costs of operating (not purchasing) generators, UPS systems and redundant HVAC systems.

Why are companies moving primary data centers to wholesale colocation facilities? Data center power costs are a significant part of the overall operating costs of a data center. The right outsource data center can reduce the company’s cost per kilowatt hour and bill for data center power as a company uses it.

In Part 8 of this series, we’ll address how wholesale colocation can help when a company is swapping primary data center and disaster recovery center sites.

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As it happens, Apple is also building a major new data center in Maiden, North Carolina that will span 500,000 square feet. The enormity of the new facility – which will be nearly five times the size of the company’s 109,000 square foot Newark, Calif. data center – has raised questions about Apple’s ambitions. Why would it need all that data center space?

A Shift to the Cloud?
I discussed this question in an August interview with Leander Kahney at the Cult of Mac blog. A recap: The most interesting question is whether Apple needs a much larger facility to support growth in its existing services, or is scaling up capacity for future offerings. One of the leading theories about the size of the NC project is that Apple is planning future cloud computing services that will require lots of data center storage.

More of the Data Center Knowledge article from Rich Miller

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I’m a high-tech landlord! My company is Lifeline Data Centers.

My clients are businesses, and they put their computer servers in our computer room buildings because they need those computer systems to be highly reliable. Computer outages cost our clients dearly. Computer outages can mean lost revenues, lost profits and lost clients.

Companies choose us because of our expertise in tornado resistant buildings, because our electrical power never goes off, because our air conditioning never fails, and because Internet access is readily available from many providers.

My company is Lifeline Data Centers, and we help our clients never skip a beat!

If I’m talking to information technology professionals, I say:

I am a wholesale data center provider, also known as an outsource data center or wholesale colocation facility. My company, Lifeline Data Centers, builds and operate computer rooms for companies who need 99.995% data center uptime or higher. The cost of downtime is very high for these companies. Minutes of downtime can mean thousands of dollars of lost revenues and profits.

We provide hardened data center facilities, built to the tier IV data center specification, with N+N data center power redundancy and cooling, multiple telecommunications carriers and no monthly cross-connect fees. We offer a simple data center pricing model and flexibility for incremental growth and change. We deliver SAS 70 data center compliance, along with TIA 942, SOX, HIPAA, FDA, FISMA and NIST compliance.

My company is Lifeline Data Centers, and we help our clients never skip a beat!

Bottom line? It’s about the uptime, or high computer reliability. If computer outages cost your company dearly, you may need a better solution. Affordable colocation at Lifeline Data Centers Midwest colocation facilities can make all the difference. Want to learn more? Call me at 317.423.2591.

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For a small business in Indianapolis with:

• one rack of server equipment
• 2 UPS systems
• router
• firewall
• 2 switches
• 30 workstations
• 10 printers

electrical usage is roughly 9 KW/hr. Cooling is another 18 KW/hr for a total of $1167 per month. Approximately $525 per month is for the servers and communications equipment.

Compare this pricing to an outsource data center: $850 per rack per month plus the cost of a telecommuncations circuit. Affordable colocation is a reality. By using an outsourcer’s hardened data center, your are protecting your systems from critical downtime. If the provider offers tier IV data center facilities, you’ll also be improving uptime via redundant power and cooling systems.

The idea of using a Midwest colocation provider may be the right choice for your business. Outsource data center facilities offer the advantage of large data center facilities at affordable prices for small business. Looking for a provider? Give Lifeline Data Centers a call at 317.4523.2591.

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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.

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PwC is looking for IT professionals to fill vacancies on its network operations, security and facilities staffs, for example. Some positions are suitable for those with just a bit of experience while others require a much richer IT background, says Rick Ancona, deputy U.S. CIO and CTO at PwC, a professional services firm with U.S. headquarters in New York.

“The problem is, not that many people out there right now are versed in the data center of today,” he says.

By “data center of today,” Ancona means a highly automated, dense and virtualized IT infrastructure that relies on the most advanced electrical and mechanical components for ultra power efficiency.

The modern data center demands that IT professionals understand multiple disciplines as well as the facilities infrastructure — and that’s one of the big issues giving rise to the hiring difficulties.

more of the CIO.com article from Beth Schultz

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