Archive for the ‘Outsource Computer Room’ Category
Are power and cooling limiting your data center?
I just read a great whitepaper by Eaton, the power products manufacturer, called “Is power your weakest link in data center flexibility?” The whitepaper talks about how higher densities and larger power footprints are causing companies to outgrow their data center power. Power is a limiting factor in data center growth.
Cooling is close behind, because for every 1 kW of power required to run IT equipment, about 1 kW of cooling is required to remove the heat.
Eaton’s modular power is a sensible approach to building an incremental power infrastructure in-house.
Colocation is a sensible alternative to eliminate the power and cooling problems. But all wholesale colocation providers are not created equal. The provider will need to allow room for growth, and provide usage based power billing. This approach providers for more granular, incremental growth in the costs of operating data center floor space, power and cooling.
IT and business process outsourcing activity declined in the third quarter of 2011, but if the economy weakens, analysts expect more outsourcing–particularly offshore–in the coming months.
The IT outsourcing market saw its first substantial decline in twelve months during the third quarter of this year. Transaction volumes fell for both the IT and business process outsourcing (BPO) markets, by seven percent and 12 percent respectively, according to the outsourcing consultancy Everest Group’s quarterly report on the global services industry. The average contract value of BPO transactions plummeted by 50 percent, while the average contract value for IT contracts increased by 14 percent, thanks largely to three billion-dollar plus deals signed during the quarter.
More of the CIO.com article from Stephanie Overby
Clamor for private cloud services from infrastructure-as-a-service providers threatens traditional outsourcing firms like HP and IBM.
IBM, HP, and other established vendors entering cloud computing are often already outsourcing partners to the firms that are now frequently looking for an infrastructure service provider. But that doesn’t mean they have an inside track on the business. They do not.
Established vendors are going to face stiff competition for outsourcing business from the new infrastructure providers: Amazon, Rackspace, and others, according to a report by Pricewaterhouse Coopers.
“Service providers in the IT outsourcing space have, after all, profited handsomely by taking on their customers’ highly complex, one-off collections of IT assets and finding ways to manage them more efficiently than their customers are able to,” states the Pricewaterhouse report.
“But the essence of cloud computing is a move towards highly standardized racks of commodity servers,” with software that manages the racks and allows customers to run applications on them through self-service. “Where’s the IT outsourcing opportunity in that?” said the report, sponsored by Mike Pearl, partner and cloud computing leader at PriceWaterhouse.
More of the InformationWeek article from Charles Babcock
E-commerce, mobile computing, tablets and other emerging channels have become so important to Best Buy that the company is rebuilding internal IT resources it outsourced seven years ago.
Best Buy is hiring some 200 IT professionals as part of this effort, and expects its IT department to increase to as many as 350 employees once this round of hiring is completed.
The electronics retailer, which saw its online revenues grow 13% in the last quarter, is putting IT at the heart of a strategy to respond to the expanding e-commerce market.
“IT is becoming a focal point for Best Buy to compete in the marketplace,” said Scott Heise, vice president of application maintenance and development at Best Buy. “A key component of that is us retaking control of IT.”
The strategy is illustrated by the people the company intends to hire.
More of the Computerworld article from Patrick Thibodeau
Established IT outsourcers are getting squeezed at both ends of the competitive spectrum. According to the annual offshore outsourcing survey conducted by Duke University’s Center for International Business Education and Research (CIBER) and PwC, incumbent India-based and U.S. IT service providers are under pressure from outsourcing upstarts in other countries that are stealing market share from them and from existing clients demanding price reductions.
Meanwhile, Indian and American IT outsourcing providers are entering new markets with both low-end, commoditized services—a highly competitive field with few barriers to entry—and higher-end services where market entry is more challenging, say the researchers. It all adds up to a perfect storm for many large IT outsourcers, says Arie Lewin, director of CIBER and professor of strategy and international business.
More of the CIO.com article from Stephanie Overby
Is a simpler data center pricing model better? Is the data center pricing model itself a decision factor when companies are reviewing colocation? We believe the answer is yes. Let’s look at the history of outsource data centers, also known as colocation, for some perspective.
In the early days of colocation (the mid-1990s) many colocation providers grew out of the telecommunications space. A Director of Operations at a local telecom branch office probably looked at some empty space in his building. He then called the Sales Manager and asked if he could find a client who might be interested in renting the space. The Sales Manager found a client, so they had to come up with a pricing model. As many of us already know, telecom providers have some of the most complex and convoluted pricing models of any vendor. Many of the complexities of telecom pricing models came to the colocation world. Colocation seems to have been born with a complex pricing model.
How many line items are on the typical monthly colocation invoice? I’ve had clients who use other data centers tell me that they have 10 line items to rent a single cabinet and a little bandwidth.
But an outsource data center is really not that complex. All colocation facilities provide real estate, power, cooling, and access to bandwidth. Midwest colocation provides hardened data center facilities and F5 tornado resistant data centers. West coast colocation is often earthquake resistant. The offerings seem simple enough. Why should the colocation pricing models be complex?
Here are some features to look for in a pricing model:
How is real estate delivered? Many outsource computer room providers dictate the amount of floor space each rack is allocated. Some allow you to purchase extra space for a less dense footprint or for growth over time. Does the data center give you the flexibility you need to grow and change?
Is the power pricing based on actual draw? It is common for outsourced data center providers to bill based on a circuit size rather than the actual power used by a client. This circuit size billing method is inherently inequitable, because power needs shift over time, and circuit utilization is never more than 50% in a highly reliable data center. Look for pay-as-you-use-it power pricing.
How is the power for cooling calculated? Data center equipment (servers, network gear and storage) require about 1 kW of cooling for each 1 kW of power to operate the equipment. Does the pricing model charge you for the cooling power in a sensible manner?
How is the capital overhead of generators, UPS systems, HVAC charged? Every rack in every data center uses a portion of the power and cooling infrastructures, along with the staffing and the data center compliance overhead. Are you being charged fairly for your share of these complex and expensive infrastructures?
Does the colocation provider charge monthly cross-connect fees? Many data centers offer access to multiple carriers. But most charge you a monthly fee for the privilege of connecting to these carriers. A few data centers charge no cross connect fees. This can be a huge savings over time, especially when companies employ multiple carriers in a complex wide area network.
Use these features to compare data center outsource costs. A simple data center pricing model lets you understand what you’re spending, better forecast changes, and control the overall cost of operating your data center.
Is data center compliance costing you? How much is your organization spending in time and money to meet the data center certification and data center compliance requirements?
Data center compliance requirements are increasing. Federal and state requirements are on the rise. Organizations are now faced with clients and vendors who require data center compliance.
Physical compliance can often be the most capital intensive and expensive. Data center security and certification requirements can make outsource colocation facilities more cost effective than doing it in-house .
Colocation facilities focus on many certifications and compliance requirements. Here are a few:
SAS-70 data center compliance
HIPAA
FDA
PCI
FISMA
Sarbanes-Oxley
TIA-942 compliant data center
Do the math. Does it make sense for an outsource computer room to do the compliance and certification work for you?
Long-term data center power costs savings can be huge with outsource computer room facilities
2011
Considering and managing the long-term costs of power for the data center can have great financial impact . Many companies have found that outsource data center facilities (colocation) can help them reduce data center power costs, while improving critical systems availability (uptime).
Companies that pay over 6 centers per kilowatt hour stand to save money by considering outsource data center facilities. Some of these high-tech data center facilities offer power billed as you use it. Lower power costs in the data center mean lower long-term IT costs for your organization.
One note: don’t forget to include the costs of cooling in your power cost estimates. The cost of electricity to cool your computer room is roughly the same as the cost to run the IT equipment. A few outsource data center pricing models include power for cooling in the per kilowatt hour pricing. This type of data center pricing model makes it very easy to forecast growth and change in your data center.
As an added bonus, many outsource data center facilities offer 99.995% uptime. That equates to 28 minutes of downtime or less per year. If the provider offers features like F5 tornado resistant facilities along with power and cooling redundancy, you may be able to save money while improving overall data center uptime.
Ask yourself these questions:
What is the cost of power at your present data center?
Does downtime cost your company sales, credibility, or lost clients?
What sort of resiliency and redundancy (uptime) have you built into your data center?
Talk to a colocation facility where you can reduce data center power costs while at the same time minimizing your data center downtime.
Great set of questions from last summer on using outsource data centers and the decision makeing process to do so.
I’m interested in hearing how organizations have come to the conclusion that this was their best alternative to expanding data center capacity?
We have seen some organizations dive into Co-Lo facilities because the industry is growing so they assume it is the right thing to do or they think it will be more cost effective before anyone has really analyzed the cost implications. I think it is critical for an organization to analyze all of the suitable approaches to their need of expanding data center capacity such as; upgrading existing facilities, Co-Location, building new or building a scalable Data Center Shelter that can be leased to provide tax benefits while the lease payments may be close to what you’d pay for suitable Co-Lo space.
First of all, what is driving your interest in Co-Location is it the costs of running your own facility? Or one of these issues:
More of the Data Center Design blog post
What’s the difference between wholesale data centers and cloud computing?
Cloud computing and cloud services receive so much press that many people, even IT professionals, assume that most outsource data centers deliver cloud services including virtualized servers, storage, network and IT services. But not all data centers offer cloud computing.
Data center services fall along a simple spectrum. At one end is colocation, also known as wholesale data center, outsource data center, or off-site computer room facilities. Colocation offers a few key features:
- Hardened data center facilities – sturdy F5 tornado resistant data centers
- Power redundancy – dual utility feeds, generators, and UPS for 99.995% uptime or better
- Cooling redundancy – Multiple chiller loops and air handlers with concurrent maintainability
- Fire suppression
- Security
- Access to multiple telecommunications providers.
At the other end is a pure service model where clients own no hardware and “rent” software, hardware, network, and storage. Common classifications of cloud computing include:
- Software as a service – software applications available via the Internet
- Platform as a service – development and delivery environments for specific software platforms
- Infrastructure as a service – everything but the kitchen sink: network, security, servers, storage and IT services.
Today, most outsource data centers live somewhere in between. These data centers offer space, power, cooling, security and fire suppression, along with IT services such as shared or dedicated routers, switches, storage and servers.
Wholesale colocation is like a high-tech landlord. Clients who want the ability to own/lease and control their own hardware tend to choose colocation. They’re happy to let the “colo” worry about power, cooling, sturdy buildings, fire suppression and security. But they want to retain control over hardware, networks and storage.
Cloud computing is more of a full service offering including hardware, software and services. Clients who want to reduce the IT burden inside an organization choose cloud computing. There are often cost savings in leveraging shared infrastructures that cloud computing providers deliver.
Wholesale data centers are often the backdrop for cloud computing services. Colocation does not offer cloud computing to its clients, but it’s a great place for implementing a cloud .
