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.

Most businesses understand the value of reliable computer systems. But fewer business owners and stakeholders understand how to get the most for their computer system reliabilty dollar.

One of the easiest ways to improve reliability is to use outsourced, hardened data centers. It’s a quick way to achieve 99.995% data center uptime. This level, also knows and “four and one half nines,” equals 27 minutes of downtime per year or less. That is the same level expected of an Uptime Institute certified tier IV data center facility.

Hardened data center facilities offer physical protection from the natural risks common to the region. With Midwest data centers and Midwest colocation, the highest risks involve tornadoes. Hardened data center facilities with reinforced concrete walls and ceilings can physically protect your organization’s most important computers.

Hardened facilities with N+N data center power redundancy protect your systems from power outages. Redundancy means that the outsource data center maintains two of every piece of equipment needed to avoid downtime. But don’t be fooled; not all redundancy is created equal. Ask your data center provider to diagram their power and cooling redundancy. You’ll be surprised at the single points of failure.

Hardened data center facilities with power redundancy and multiple telecommunications carriers allow organizations to build more reliable data networks. More carriers can equal less risk of circuit downtime.

Your organization’s cost of downtime helps you determine the value of outsourced, hardened data center facilities. If more than 26 minutes of downtime per year costs your organization revenue, credibility, or clients, call Lifeline Data Centers at 317.423.2591.

One of our new data center customers is a cloud service provider. Correction: most of Lifeline Data Centers’ new customers are cloud services providers. But this particular customer took advantage of a specific approach to cost savings, resulting in tens of thousands of dollars per year. I’ll refer to this approach, this space between, as Lifeline.

This customer is a cloud services company. Back at start up a few years ago, the company leveraged another cloud provider for the IT infrastructure: server, network and security equipment. This let the company start up fast and provide for future scalability.

But there was a problem. The company became successful. They were acquiring new clients, generating new revenue and scaling their application. But the costs of scaling were too high. The cloud infrastructure pricing model meant that more sales growth would result in lower and lower margins.

So they took a step back and re-evaluated the infrastructure. It wasn’t that complex; it boiled down to VMware, a few servers, a SAN, switches, security appliances and a recovery model. With a few hours of design time, they came up with a modular approach, designed to scale one rack of equipment at a time. The design was a low-cost, over-engineered solution that was resilient enough to take multiple failures and not miss a beat. What they really needed was a flexible, affordable colocation facility to house these racks.

Here is the list of outsource data center requirements they developed:

High uptime: 99.995%: equal to tier IV data center uptime standards of 27 minutes of downtime per year or less

Hardened data center facilities operated by experts who build to the highest data center certifications and resiliency standards

Access to multiple carriers without monthly cross connect fees: Multiple carriers allowed them to negotiate more flexible contracts with multiple carriers. Multiple carriers allows them to control their uptime and service levels. No monthly cross connect fees means lower monthly costs and no upper limit on carrier diversity.

Data center pricing model that is incremental, or pay as you grow

Midwest data center for low, predictable costs of power

The company chose Lifeline Data Centers because Lifeline was flexible and had all of these features. The cloud services company found better profitability by replacing a cloud infrastructure with their own infrastructure at Lifeline. This “space between” cloud computing and the data center may hold lower costs, better service levels or higher profitability for your organization, too.

If your data center is in-house, you may want to consider outsource data center as well. Infrastructure and cloud computing PDF whitepapers don’t talk enough about flexibility when it comes to a company’s physical data center facilities. Check out our whitepaper on outsourcing a data center.

If you’re a cloud service provider, or an IT professional looking to improve uptime ad reduce data center costs, call 317.423.2591 to find out how you benefit from this “space between.”

With a state-of-the-art data center recently opened in Georgia, PricewaterhouseCoopers is on the prowl for a few good people. The challenge looms just about as large as the 80,000-square-foot building housing the IT infrastructure.

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

With the current enthusiasm about cloud computing, some have argued that cloud platforms will replace the data center, or reduce the need for physical infrastructure. Or perhaps that all the world’s applications will run out of just five huge cloud computign facilities.

more of the Data Center Knowledge article from Rich Miller

Enterprise data center construction has slowed to a crawl in the recession, but there is one spot that’s growing brighter every day. That’s because most companies aren’t building their own data-center space, but they are leasing it in ever-increasing numbers.

In turn, businesses like Digital Realty Trust — which offers move-in ready, enterprise-scale data center facilities that include security and rack-ready raised floor space with redundant power, cooling and network infrastructure — find they can’t get new space online fast enough to meet demand. These firms, sometimes called wholesale data center facility operators, typically cater to large enterprise customers and high-tech firms that need large amounts of floor space.

For its part, Digital Realty Trust has begun focusing more on the enterprise data center market by offering custom data center design, construction and management services. Some enterprises are also working through co-location providers, which provide smaller, caged space in a shared facility and offer less flexibility on the design.

The increased demand for leased data center real estate is being driven by reluctance on the part of IT, and on their executive management, to make the capital investments needed to buy and build the infrastructure for themselves.

more of the ComputerWorld article from Robert L. Mitchell

Part of the irresistible appeal of the term “cloud computing” is the imagery of computing power as light and floating. For most CIOs, nothing is so immovable as the data center.

The whopper data center bets they must make still pivot around brick and mortar. Here are a few companies that made very different decisions to meet their data center needs in the past year–insource, sell, and build.

For additional insight into data center strategy, see also Bob Evans’ Global CIO column, “Data Centers Behaving Boldly: Meet Tech’s New Rock Stars”)

Insource A Data Center

Whitney National Bank decided to insource a data center, under the leadership of Scott Erlichman, senior VP of technology infrastructure for the regional bank. The bank’s 3-year lease was up on co-location space it used for disaster recovery, and the bank found rates had risen 50% or more since 2006, because demand for such space is high. At the same time, the bank already was planning some construction at a site it owned in Alabama, in order to do some back-end work such as check processing. That made insourcing an intriguing option.

more of the Information Week article from Chris Murphy

CIOs are reducing risks by employing outsource data centers to solve their compliance problems. CIO strategy now includes leveraging outsource data centers and the certifications and compliance they maintain to help the enterprise meet government regulations.

CIOs have used outsource data centers for years to drive higher uptime and reap the benefits of lower data center capital costs. Now, many companies are using outsource data center facilities to keep compliance costs under control.

Physical security is one of the main data center compliance benefits that outsource data centers provide. Outsource data center facilities employ multiple levels of physical security to meet state and federal regulations. It’s usually less costly to “rent” the physical security than to build physical security and managing the ongoing physical security costs in-house.

Some data center compliance centers around service levels, or uptime. High reliability for enterprise computer systems can only be achieved in “mission critical facilities” that employ N+1 data center power redundancy and other tier IV data center characteristics. Service levels of 99.995% uptime (27 minutes of downtime per year or less) can be be found in affordable colocation facilities. The cost of building an enterprise data center with similar levels of data center uptime usually reaches into the millions, even for a small facility.

Data center compliance pressures are coming from vendors and clients as well. Many companies now require that vendors and clients operate SAS 70 data centers, TIA 942 compliant data centers, tier III or tier IV data centers. The cost of maintaining these certifications alone can pay for outsource colocation facilities.

Would it make more sense for your organization to use compliance-centered outsource data center facilities rather than building and maintaining your own? Call the data center compliance experts to learn more.

Affordable colocation and 99.995% uptime are NOT mutually exclusive. Make sure you understand your outsource data center’s levels of redundancy and the uptime service level agreements in order to get the best combination of uptime and affordability.

Your staff, your clients, and your vendors are expecting a zero downtime data center. But your budget may not be big enough for that level of data center uptime. How do you balance uptime and affordability in your selection process?

If you’re shopping for an outsource data center, you may be asking providers about their Uptime Institute tier rating. Some might say they are tier III data centers. Others may call themselves tier IV data centers. Most are not certified by the Uptime Institute. The cost of certification is prohibitive for many providers. The Uptime Institute Tier Standard: Topology, and its associated white paper are available FREE of charge at http://uptimeinstitute.org/content/view/302/281/ . Likewise, the cost of Uptime Institute membership is prohibitive for many IT organizations. There are a few other rating systems exist for data center redundancy, including the TIA 942 data center standard. How do you evaluate outsource data center alternatives for uptime?

We believe that the better approach to selecting your outsource computer room provider is clearly understand the provider’s specific levels of redundancy and uptime service level agreements.

How do you find out what levels of redundancy exist? Ask tough questions about:

-Hardened data center buildings
-Data center power redundancy
-Cooling systems redundancy
-Telecom entrance redundancy
-Availability of multiple carriers
-Physical security
-SAS 70 data center compliance

You may need to do your homework to learn about critical power and cooling. But understanding the strict detail of a data center’s architecture and the differences between two facilities can make all the difference in the event of an unforseen problem.

If you’re looking for Midwest colocation and affordable data center space with 99.995% uptime (36 minutes of downtime per year or less), give Lifeline Data Centers a call.

New year, new data center strategy: The coming of the new year offers a time for both reflection and for planning. Data center strategy is changing for many organizations. What changes do you envision for your data center in the coming years?

Your customers, staff and vendors expect your information technology applications to be available immediately and always. Expectations aside, if your company depends on your computer systems for your business processes, you need to assess your cost of downtime. In 2008, Amazon’s cost of downtime was $122,260 per hour. Downtime calculators are out there; every business is different. Assign a dollar figure to your cost of downtime so you can determine how much to spend on high availability, also known as data center uptime.

Your cost of downtime helps you determine what your uptime levels need to be. Data center industry people talk in terms like 99.995% uptime (also known as 4-1/2 9’s), which translates to 36 minutes of downtime per year or less. Is 99.995% uptime what your company needs?

Large and small companies are using outsource data center facilities (colocation) as a higher uptime alternative to the computer room at their headquarters. If the cost of downtime means lost revenue, lost credibility, and lost clients, using outsource data center facilities offers an easy way to improve uptime. Data center outsourcing takes care of mission critical facilities details like N+1 data center redundancy, security, HVAC and fire suppression, so you can concentrate on your mission critical applications and executing your business processes.

Companies who are required to maintain regulatory compliance can greatly benefit rom outsource computer room facilities. SAS 70 data center facilities can offer many tiers data center compliance. Data center compliance experts can help determine how your regulatory requirements affect your data center.

Affordable colocation has also been an incentive for many companies to move their main computers out of their headquarters. Prices are very competitive for midwest colocation. Outsource data center pricing models can offer both incremental grown and a drastic reduction in data center capital costs.

Check with outsource data center facilities experts to learn more about data center strategy.