How much data center downtime can your company take?

What is the cost of downtime?
How many hours would it take for the company leadership to be concerned? Cost: discomfort.
How long would it take for your customers to start complaining? Cost: grave concern.
How many hours before your customers turn to your competition to serve their needs? Cost: real revenues and profits.

Most large companies evaluate how much downtime they can take per computer application. The customer-facing ordering system may be more important than the accounting system it feeds, but less important than e-mail. Companies create a matrix of applications and levels of criticality. They use this matrix to develop their data center requirements. If 99.995% uptime (28 minutes of downtime per year or less) is required, many companies outsource the computer room facilities to affordable colocation facilities.
These computer room outsourcers offer data center power redundancy, cooling redundancy, and data center certifications. An ever-growing list of federal and state regulations is driving many companies to outsource computer room facilities as an easy way to “make the grade.”

Companies have lots of choices when it comes to outsource data center. Many savvy companies prefer wholesale colocation. Wholesale colocation offers floor/rack space, power and cooling. Some wholesale colocation facilities are high availability, carrier neutral data centers that offer a unique ability to deliver easy-to-change configurations and access to multiple telecommunications carriers with no cross connect fees.

Need better reliability in your computer systems? Need to reduce your downtime? Talk to the high uptime data center professionals at Lifeline Data Centers, 317.423.2591.

In Part 1 of this article, I talked about your organization’s need for high computer system reliability, also known as data center uptime. I talked about the emerging standard of of 99.995% uptime, which translates to 28 minutes of downtime per year or less. I discussed the option of building your own data center, including the benefits of better control, and the downsides of high costs and complexity.

Your other option is to use outsource data center facilities to house your enterprise data center. Outsource data center facilities come in many shapes and sizes. Here are a few of the most common:

Managed services providers – Large providers such as IBM, HP, and Sungard offer data center space along with managed services such as IT support, network, server and storage hardware. These providers are well suited to replace some or all of your IT staff, along with the burden of maintaining hardware and a data center. Profitability for these providers is often based on managed services, so these managed services providers will be keenly interested in providing their IT services to your organization.

Telecommunications providers – Telecommunications providers like AT&T, and TW Telecom started the colocation business. They sold extra space in their central offices to companies that needed more reliable power. Costs vary for these facilities, and the “rule book” tends to be fairly restrictive. There are often limits on power, space per rack, and access to other telecommunications providers. Some have ventured into the managed services business to generate additional revenues.

Wholesale colocation facilities – The simplest offering, wholesale colocation offers hardened data centers, redundant power and cooling, along with physical security, and fire suppression. I call wholesale data centers “high-tech landlords” because they offer real estate-like services to your organization. Wholesale colocation offers expertise in power and cooling. These are areas of expertise that most IT organizations lack. You have the flexibility to choose who does the IT services, whether it your own staff or a third party provider. Wholesale data centers also offer flexibility for growth and change inside the data center. A select few of the best providers are carrier neutral data centers with a dozen carriers or more that charge no monthly cross-connect fees. Watch for hidden costs on power utilization. You should be able to pay incrementally as you grow your power utilization and rack space.

Regardless of the type of outsource data center you select, make sure you ask questions about:

• Power and cooling systems: Do they have two of everything? You’ll be surprised at how many lack basic data center redundancy and reliability.
• SAS 70 data center certification: Is data center compliance is affecting your vendors and clients? You can “buy” a level of compliance in an outsource data center.
• Colocation power costs: What are you paying per kilowatt hour of utilization? Are their limits on power per rack? Are there hidden charges for more power? Your data center power costs can double based on the geographic location you select.

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Do wholesale colocation facilities sound like they might fit your needs? For affordable colocation, call me at Lifeline Data Centers, 317.423.2591.

Data center uptime has become the one of the most important quality metrics for today’s successful enterprise. More organizations depend on their computer systems to:

• sell their products and services online via e-commerce
• deliver core services
• manufacture products
• manage logistics
• communicate with clients, vendors and remote staff

The Tier IV data center standard of 99.995% uptime (28 minutes of downtime per year or less) is fast becoming the minimum acceptable downtime level for an organization’s most important computer applications. If an hour’s worth of downtime in the middle of the day hobbles your business and costs you revenue, profits, or clients, please read on.

What are the options for managing the risk of downtime?

You can build an enterprise data center in-house, but the cost of a 99.995% uptime facility means that you need at least two of everything: two utility feeds, two generators, two UPS systems, and two air conditioning systems. You’ll also need a hardened data center facility that is built to withstand regional disasters. In-house data centers offer you the highest level of control. But in-house data centers can be expensive, capital intensive and expensive to maintain. If you compromise at any level, whether it’s one utility feed, one generator, one UPS system , or one air conditioner, you increase your risk of downtime by an order of magnitude.

Your other option is to use outsource data center and/or managed services providers to manage your risk of downtime. In part 2, I”ll cover the variety of options available.

Does data center uptime equal your company’s reputation?

The reliability of your most important computer systems affects the way that you interact with customers and vendors. If your customer-facing systems are not reliable, you run the risk of losing revenues, profits and customers.

If your internal computer systems are not reliable, your employees have a harder time selling, making products, or delivering services. If your customer service systems are down, you’re risking your reputation, and the loss of customers.

How reliable do your systems need to be? The computer industry has a few different metrics for uptime (reliability). 4 1/2 9s of uptime (99.995% uptime) = 28 minutes of downtime per year or less. This is the expected level of downtime for tier IV data centers, the highest uptime tier.

But building and operating an enterprise data center with this level of reliability is expensive. It takes millions of dollars of capital, along with FTEs and ongoing maintenance costs. How does an IT department deliver data center reliability without spending all the profits?

Smart IT departments consider outsource data center facilities as an alternative to building their own. Often times, these companies use the outsource data center as the primary data center, because high uptime and high reliability are most important for a company’s primary computer systems.

Wholesale colocation facilities and wholesale computer rooms like Lifeline Data Centers provide a low-cost alternative to building out a high-reliability data center. And other benefits like data center certifications and data center compliance come along with the package, reducing the burden of compliance for the company.

How important is reliability to your mission critical computer systems? Is your company’s reputation on the line? Call Lifeline Data Centers at 317.423.2591 to learn how your company can improve data center uptime and control long-term costs.

Is Indianapolis a viable option for your wholesale colocation facilities needs? Let’s look at the facts:

• Indianapolis has low power costs: $.055 per kilowatt hour.
• Indianapolis is half a day’s drive from over half of the US population.
• Labor costs and the cost of living
• Indianapolis is the shining star of the Midwest as a home for software and other technology companies

Indianapolis-based Lifeline Data Centers offers wholesale data centers with unique features:

• Affordable colocation
• 99.995% uptime
• Carrier neutral data center
• No cross-connect fees
• Low data center power costs
• Power billing based on utilization
• Owner-operated facilities
• Office space under the same roof as the outsource data center facilities
• High power densities
• Pay as you grow pricing

Can wholesale colocation facilities help you improve data center uptime and reduce your costs? Call Lifeline Data Centers at 317.423.2591 to learn how you can leverage a “high-tech landlord” to make your computer systems more reliable.

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.

Does it make more sense to build your own data center, use a colocation center to house your gear, or lease turn-key space from a wholesale data center provider? The size of a requirement has historically been a key decision point in sorting out the economics of data center expansion. But capital, control and speed to market are also important considerations in determining the best approach, according to panelists at the Tier 1 Datacenter Transformation Summit last week in Reston, Va.

more of the Data Center Knowledge article from Rich Miller

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.