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.

What are the real costs of operating your enterprise data center? The electrical power needed to maintain an enterprise data center continues to increase.  Yet in small 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 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.

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.

The Develop Indy blog featured a post from Lifeline’s VP of Business Development this week.

Silicorn Valley – Indianapolis hotbed for technology firms
May. 19/10

By Doug Theis, Lifeline Data Centers

Indianapolis is the shining technology star of the Midwest. Dozens of technology firms are enjoying success and growth in Indiana’s capital city. Although life sciences and high tech manufacturing receive a great deal of press coverage (see Doug Karr’s post about life sciences), the technology firms are leading the charge to more and better paying jobs in Indy.

Here is the evidence:

* Hoovers lists 73 software as a service (SaaS) firms in Indianapolis.
* Software development firms like Software Engineering Professionals, Fusion Alliance, Ambassador Solutions, Bitwise and startup Developer Town are all enjoying great success.

more of the Develop Indy blog post from Doug Theis

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.

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.

Lifeline’s Eastgate facility is adding both carriers and customers alike! Less than a year after opening, almost half of the first floor of the Burlington building is under contract.

Savvy business owners and IT organizations use Lifeline’s pay-as-you-grow data center pricing model to predict and control IT facilities costs. They use carrier neutral telecommuncations access and no cross connect fees to reduce their telecom overhead. They leverage Lifeline’s data center certifications such as SAS 70 Type II. and compliance such as SAS 70 Type II, HIPAA, FISMA, and FDA.

Can you drive unpredictable costs out of your IT operations while improving uptime? You can at Lifeline.

If you need affordable colocation (computer room space) with high uptime and low monthly recurring costs, call Lifeline at 317.423.2591. Choose Lifeline. Stop worrying about downtime.