Archive for the ‘Midwest data center’ Category
When is colocation a better fit than cloud computing? That’s one of the most frequent CIO and data center strategy questions we hear as companies tour our Indianapolis colocation facility.
Let’s define terms.
Colocation is outsource data center facilities: hardened data center buildings, power redundancy, cooling redundancy, physical security, fire suppression, and access to telecommunications carriers. Colocation providers could also be called high-tech landlords, providing data center as a specialized real estate offering.
Cloud computing is many things (read up on cloudwashing), but generally it is one of more computing resources delivered via the Internet. Many companies use cloud computing to eliminate the need to buy and own disk storage, servers, network and security devices.
Let’s assume that high data center uptime is a requirement, regardless of whether a company uses colocation or cloud computing. Most companies expect at least 99.995% uptime for their production data center. 99.995% uptime is 28 minutes of downtime per year or less. The cost of downtime for companies like this is almost always a combination of lost productivity, lost revenue and lost clients. Both colocation and cloud computing can offer high data center uptime.
Here are a few instances when cloud computing may be a better fit.
Companies are in start up mode and are trying to keep costs low.
Cloud computing offers low start up costs, almost no capital expenditures up front. Cloud computing typically offers server and network management as part of the service, so the need for on-staff IT help is also reduced.
Scalability (cloud bursting) is a key requirement.
A few of the more sophisticated cloud providers offer the ability to protect a company from its own success, i.e. an onslaught of web visits without a crash. Think of a successful marketing campaign that drives so much traffic that your website topples under the load. Cloudbursting offers a solution to this problem.
Avoidance or reduction of on-staff IT support.
If a company is trying to cut IT staffing costs, cloud computing can offer the benefits of IT delivery support without the FTE burden.
Here are some of Lifeline Data Centers’ observations on when colocation is the better fit.
Companies wish to control the hardware that supports their applications.
This is often a result of the applications a company uses. Many mission critical applications require extra memory, processor power, and/or network resources to meet performance goals. Controlling all hardware components end-to-end improves reliability and performance.
Companies wish to own and operate their own hardware, for whatever reason.
This could be to take advantage of sunken costs, to leverage lower costs of owning hardware over time, or just because it’s important for the CIO to own his own hardware.
Data center compliance and certification requirements are complex.
HIPAA, FDA, FISMA, NIST, PCI/DSS and SOX compliance are easier to manage in a physical data center than a logical of virtual data center offered by cloud computing.
Companies need access to multiple telecommunications carriers.
This is not exclusive to colocation. However colocation providers that deliver carrier neutral data centers with no cross connect fees are more common that cloud computing providers who offer the same flexibility.
Cloud computing and colocation are not mutually exclusive. Many companies utilize cloud resources via their colocation facilities.
What are your requirements for the next generation of your data center? Will you choose colocation, cloud computing, or a hybrid solution that includes both?
Data center management is complex. Whether it’s in-house, at a colocation facility, or multiple locations, it’s challenging to manage applications, operating systems, servers, storage, networking and facilities.
Companies are changing their data centers at a record rate. Higher data center uptime is often the reason. Data center power and cooling limits also push many companies to make a change in their data center. Many companies are adding another computer room to act as a disaster recovery center.
An unprecedented number of companies are visiting our Midwest colocation facility as they consider changes to their computing environments. Many of these companies are now dividing their data center responsibilities into two major categories:
Information technology – applications, operating systems, servers, storage, and networking
Facilities – hardened data centers, power, cooling, and physical security
These companies understand that the expertise required to successfully manage the IT responsibilities are very different from the power, and cooling expertise of data center facilities management responsibilities.
Here are the trends we see when companies talking to us about their data center management problems:
Mostly facilities problems – Companies consider wholesale colocation or data centers as real estate.
Combination of facilities and IT problems – Companies are using cloud computing and/or colocation facilities that offer IT services as well. Alternatively, some of these companies use wholesale colocation with third party IT providers.
Mostly IT problems – Companies hire outsourced expertise, use cloud services, or augment the existing staff for projects and ongoing support.
Where are your biggest data center management headaches: IT, facilities or both? How do you plan to solve these problems?
Lifeline Data Centers featured in Indy Star article on the Indianapolis Emergency Operations Center
2012
The Indy Star published this article yesterday about the new Indianapolis Emergency Operations Center on the Lifeline Data Centers campus.
Keeping an eye on crime just got a little easier in Indianapolis.
At least that’s the contention of city officials, who said a new 76,000-square-foot Regional Operations Center that opened Wednesday gives them faster and more accurate information about where crimes are being committed.
“The creation and opening of the (center) is an integral part of our ongoing, proactive plan to ensure the safety of the public,” Mayor Greg Ballard said in a prepared statement.
The center, at the old Eastgate Consumer Mall on Shadeland Avenue near Washington Street, dwarfs the old 1,100-square-foot Marion County Emergency Operations Center at 47 N. State Ave.
More of the Indy Star article from John Tuohy
Colocation or cloud computing? Which one is right for your critical computer systems?
In simple terms, colocation (also known as outsourced data center or wholesale colocation) is high-tech real estate. Companies use colocation to solve the problems of hardened data center buildings, power, cooling, telecommunications and security. Companies use colocation to solve these problems without losing any control of their IT infrastructure and systems. Colocation is about control of IT without the worry of building facilities.
Cloud computing comes in many forms. Companies use cloud computing to access applications and resources without owning hardware or maintaining an IT staff . Cloud computing is about applications and solutions without the worry of IT staff, IT infrastructure, and building facilities.
When comparing cloud computing providers, make sure you understand the incremental costs. Simpler pricing models are usually better. Understand the built-in backup systems and redundancies and how you can build in higher reliability if you need to.
When shopping amongst colocation providers, make sure you understand the incremental costs. Simpler data center pricing models are usually better. Keep costs low by choosing a provider with low power costs. Midwest colocation providers tend to have lower data center power costs than other areas of the United States. Affordable colocation is available in many regions of the country. Most companies today look for a minimum 99.995% uptime carrier neutral data centers with no cross connect fees.
Use colocation to maintain control of your applications and infrastructure without the worries of building facilities. Use cloud computing when you’re looking to solve application problems with a minimum of IT overhead.
Second fiber path into data center gives local companies the ability to institute business continuity practices, which is often mandated by industry regulations
November 29, 2011 – ROCHESTER, NY and INDIANAPOLIS
Fibertech Networks, a leading provider of broadband capacity serving the Indianapolis community since 2002, has completed a dual fiber entrance to Lifeline Data Centers’ Eastgate facility. The new, second entrance willallow Indianapolis government, health care, and financial service organizations to effectively meet industry compliance standards for network uptime and access to information.
“Redundancy in the network is easily the most important offering that this dual entrance provides,” said Alex Carroll, president for Lifeline Data Centers. ”Customers that manage mission critical applications must be aligned with the telecommunications industry compliance standard TIA-942. One of the requirements with this standard is that there must be diverse, dual paths for customers that require 99.999% uptime and the entrance that Fibertech recently installed accomplishes this.”
More of the TelecomRamblings.com post
Data center building, power, and cooling disciplines are not IT disciplines.
Your expertise on applications, software architecture, network, server and storage design is not expertise on building tier IV data centers with 99.995% uptime.
Likewise, experts on mission critical facilities like hardened data center buildings, data center power redundancy and cooling are rarely experts on mission critical systems and applications.
A best-of-breed CIO strategy would include expertise in both information technology systems design and highly available data center facilities. How is this done?
If your organization likes to “roll your own” enterprise data center, you probably hire design/build experts to help you accomplish your goals of high data center uptime. Although the capital costs associated with in-house data centers can be enormous, internal data centers offer the highest level of control.
If your organization is considering outsourcing the facilities disciplines, wholesale colocation offers a simple way to offload the “landlord” side of the data center without losing control of the systems.
It’s often best to outsource data center facilities when you’re great at IT but not so great at building data centers.
Midwest colocation facilities like Lifeline Data Centers offer F5 tornado resistant buildings,N+N power and cooling redundancy, and access to many telecom providers. Midwest data centers offer low power costs also give you peace of mind that you’ve done the best job at solving the data center downtime problem using an affordable colocation solution.
Are you trying to be an expert in both facilities and IT? Talk it over with the mission critical facilities experts.
Do you need a hardened data center? If you are trying to protect your data center’s ability to withstand natural or man-made disasters and acts of terrorism, then the answer is yes. The term “hardened data center” described computer room facilities that are designed to withstand tornadoes, earthquakes, and man-made disasters.
Many data center strategies includes using hardened data centers to achieve 99.995% uptime. Hardened data centers, along with redundant data center power and cooling all play a part on maximing reliability and increasing data center uptime.
Not all hardened data centers are alike. Many believe the best type is a reinforced concrete structure. Reinforced concrete offers the best protection against tornadoes, the most common natural disaster in Midwest data centers and Midwest colocation. F5 tornado resistant data centers help companies protect against wost case. Reinforced concrete also offers excellent protection from earthquakes.
Some hardened data centers are constructed as a building within a building, based on the thinking that a natural disaster might destroy the outermost building while the inner building protects the data center. This approach is often used when an existing building is being refit as a data center facility. The effectiveness of the protection is completely dependent on the type of building and construction.
Hardened data centers can be used as primary (production) data center facilities or as disaster recovery sites. Many consider a hardened facility more important for the production environment in order to minimize service interruptions.
How important is a hardened data center? It is critically important if you are trying to avoid downtime and if your area is prone to disaster.
Is your organization considering Chicago disaster recovery data centers? Chicago colocation and disaster recovery providers offer many options. Are these best for your organization?
Many factors play in to the selection secondary data center and office space locations. A good CIO strategy includes multiple geographies in an evaluation of disaster recovery centers. For some organizations Midwest colocation outside of Chicago might be a better solution.
Standard features that many organizations look for when considering disaster recovery centers include:
Hardened data center facilities – With Midwest colocation, F5 tornado resistant data centers building are important, along with earthquake resistant facilities in some areas.
99.995% uptime or better – This is the uptime level expected from Tier IV data centers. Some IT professionals consider the uptime is a DR center to be less important than in the primary data center. If your organization is doing real-time or near-real time data replication, data center uptime in your disaster recovery center is likely as important as in your primary enterprise data center.
Multiple carriers with no cross-connect fees – Access to multiple telecom carriers ensures diverse and reliable connectivity in the event of a disaster, or on an ongoing basis with real-time replication. Data centers with no monthly cross connect fees significantly reduce ongoing costs.
Data center compliance and certification – Compliance and certifications in the disaster recovery center are just as important as the primary data center.
Data center pricing model – Simple is better. Most organizations seem to prefer to pay for power, cooling and space incrementally as they use it.
Advantages to Midwest data centers located outside of Chicago include:
- Geographic diversity, especially for Chicago-based organizations.
- Overall lower costs, including, lower data center power costs, lower costs of construction labor, and lower data center capital costs.
- A theoretically lower risk from placing the disaster recovery center outside of one of the USA’s five largest cities.
Wholesale colocation providers offer the most flexibility for organizations that prefer to own and control their own telecom connections, network, servers and storage. Some wholesale data centers offer disaster recovery office space. This space can be custom fit by the organization to use for emergency call centers or workspace recovery.
Considering disaster recovery options in Chicago? Consider Midwest colocation providers outside of Chicago in your search.
Is wholesale colocation the right venue for your cloud?
If your organization
- operates a private cloud
- delivers cloud services
- uses a combination of cloud and internal services
you may want to consider a wholesale data center as the center or hub of your cloud infrastructure.
Outsource data centers can deliver 99.995% uptime. That’s 28 minutes of data center downtime per year or less. You can leverage the data center power and cooling redundancy in an F5 tornado resistant data center without having to spend the capital costs to build your own.
You can maintain the control of your own servers, network and storage without worrying about hardened data center buildings, power, cooling, data center security, and fire suppression.
You can build a primary, secondary, or high-availability computer room that meets SAS 70 data center requirements along with other data center certifications and compliance, without having to use internal resources for compliance.
You can choose which telecommunications providers best suit your needs, in order to build a reliable, cost-effective wide area network.
You can leverage data center power costs by choosing Midwest colocation facilities with lower kilowatt hour costs .
Which wholesale data center is the right place to build your cloud computing data center? Consider these criteria:
- Is the outsource data center provider growing? Look for large, successful data center facilities with room to grow.
- Who owns the data center? Are the owners involved in the day-to-day operations?
- What’s the track record of the business? How long have they been building and operating data centers?
- What level of data center uptime is the provider offering? 99.995% uptime is the promised service level of a tier IV data center.
- Does the provider offer shared space, private cages or private suites? Can you bring your own cabinets? Do they offer optional office space? More options are better.
- What are your choices for telecommunications? If you need flexibility, you need a carrier neutral data center that offers access to many carriers. Look for facilities with no cross connect fees to keep monthly costs low.
- Look for a usage-based power pricing model with low per kilowatt hour pricing. Midwest data centers often have the best power pricing because of lower power costs in the region.
- Look for affordable colocation facilities can deliver 99.995% with a pay as you grow data center pricing model.
If you’d like to build more reliability and predictable costs into your data center, call Lifeline Data Centers at 317.423.2591.
Midwest Disaster Recovery and permanent workplace recovery space may make sense to companies who don’t want to be left without office space in a disaster.
Workplace recovery and workgroup recovery are common terms for a particular set of services in the disaster recovery space. These services usually include a subscription to an office space environment to use in the event of a disaster. This office space has multiple workstations, each with a desk, chair, computer, and phone, along with access to printers, Internet connection and bathrooms. Companies pay a monthly fee for each “seat” they need, so a company might buy 50 seats in a 200 seat facility. Workgroup recovery service providers usually oversubscribe the seats 5 to 10 times so they can be profitable.
When the disaster strikes, companies call and declare a disaster. Additional costs accrue based on the length of time a company uses the space. The problem is that in a regional disaster, you may be too late. If enough companies call before you, you may be left without space. The first few companies who call are the ones who get the space. If a company is the second to call and the first company has all 200 seats, then the second company is out of luck.
That is why Lifeline is offering permanent space for workgroup recovery on our Eastgate campus. Companies can rent 2500 or more square feet of office space and build their own workgroup recovery on the same campus and under the same roof as their disaster recovery colocation. This takes the guesswork and the risk out of a disaster scenario.
Is it more expensive or less expensive? It depends. Give us a call at 317.423.2591 if you’d like to do the math.
