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.

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Given all the time, investment and energy (literally) that enterprise organizations have been making in their data center facilities, you’d think that the availability of such facilities is a non-issue. You’d be wrong.

Nemertes Research predicts a shortage of colocation space in the U.S. beginning this year, growing to a $1.9 billion facilities gap by 2015.

How did we arrive at these conclusions? We looked at the data center market by independently assessing both supply (the current and predicted availability of commercial data center colocation facilities) and demand (the user need for such facilities). And we found that while supply is growing, demand is growing faster. This supply-demand imbalance creates what we’re calling “the colo crunch”.

Supply is Growing…

To assess supply, Nemertes relied on traditional primary and secondary market research techniques to determine the current market size and extrapolate growth rates. We arrived at an overall 2012 domestic market of roughly $18.5 billion in commercial data-center colocation facilities, growing to $31.2 billion in 2015.

More of the Data Center Knowledge article from Ted Ritter

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• The illusion of data center uptime

Most of the mid-size companies that visit our Midwest colocation facility already have a data center. It’s the one in their home office. These companies have built a data center inside the four walls to take advantage of real estate that is already leased, along with cheap, fast network access for all of the employees in the building.

Redundant generators protect against data center downtime

But do all these data center capital costs improve uptime? The answer is yes, but in many cases, not enough. Many of us mistakenly look at the last five years of actual downtime to judge whether our data center is highly reliable. This is a mistake. Your data center may not be reliable, even though you’ve been lucky for the last five years.

What does it take to keep your downtime to less that an hour per year? It takes data center with two of everything that is critical for operation: power, cooling, and communications systems. This two of everything model is also called N+N data center redundancy. Without it, companies should expect hours or days of downtime per year.

Uptime Institute uses a structured system to classify data centers. Tier IV data centers are built with N+N redundancy (two of everything) to maximize reliability. These Tier IV data centers are designed to deliver 99.995% uptime, which is 28 minutes of downtime per year or less. But building a Tier IV data center is expensive. A second power feed into a building can cost a quarter of a million dollars. CFOs routinely reject the idea a second generator because of the exorbitant capital costs. Without N+N data center redundancy, the uptime numbers just don’t add up.

What’s the answer to high uptime and manageable costs? Many companies use affordable wholesale colocation facilities. Some of these outsource data centers offer 99.995% uptime in exchange for monthly operating expenses rather than exorbitant capital costs. Many IT staffers use colocation to reduce their workload, get out of the power and cooling business, and focusing their data center management on their critical computer systems.

Colocation is not for every company. Applications, users, geography and other factors play into whether colocation or cloud computing might improve the reliability of your data center. The bottom line is the cost of downtime to your company. If you need 99.995% uptime, don’t fall prey to the illusion of data center uptime. Consider wholesale colocation to solve the uptime problem and manage data center costs.

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• Ted Ritter – The Coming Colo Crunch

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.

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Consider the what it takes for 99.995% uptime enterprise data center facilities management:

F5 tornado resistant data center building- for Midwest colocation

Full data center power redundancy – multiple power feeds, generators, UPS systems and rack feeds

Data center cooling redundancy – multiple, concurrently maintainable cooling systems

Physical security – two factor authentication and multiple layers of loggable physical security

Fire suppression – Reliable, industry standard systems with regular testing and maintenance

Data center compliance and certifications – from SAS 70 to SSAE 16, HIPAA, Sarbanes Oxley, FDA, FISMA and NIST certifications are just a few of the standards

Telecomm redundancy – Multiple telecommuncations feeds with separate entrances into the building

These requirements have nothing to do with Information Technology. They are facilities problems. If a colocation provider can take these requirements off your hands, you’re free to focus on data center management of your business, the applications that support it, and your underlying IT infrastructure.

Yes, wholesale colocation providers can simplify data center management. And if you’re selective, you can use the colocation provider to engineer higher data center uptime levels. Look for a wholesale colocation provider that delivers hardened data centers, N+N data center redundancy, multiple carriers, no cross connect fees, and 99.995% uptime. Power billing based on utilization is key. And don’t forget to shop for low data center power costs.

Wholesale colocation lets you stop worrying about data center facilities management.

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Zynga, the online game provider that recently went public, and Twitter were the two largest leasers of wholesale data center space during 2011, according to the Grub & Ellis National Data Center Practice year-end report.

Grub & Ellis is a broker of wholesale data center space, connecting tenants with builders such as CoreSite, DuPont Fabros, and Digital Realty Trust. There are several specialized brokers of such space. A wholesale data center builder produces a secure and efficient data center building, often with more than one source of power, and then a broker finds tenants to lease the space.

Wholesale space is different from hosted or managed services because the tenants put their own equipment in it and run it themselves. Grub and Ellis’ year-end summary doesn’t cover all broker’s activities, only their own, but is representative of some wholesale data center trends.

More of the InformationWeek article from Charles Babcock

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SmarterTools recently completed its transition to a new data center in the Phoenix area. The addition of the Tier 3 data center was integral for the upcoming launch of our hosted services (such as our Hosted SmarterTrack customer service software) and will help us support increased demand for our software.

It was a logical step for our company, but not one that was taken lightly. We realize that many of our customers use our software and services for mission-critical tasks, so the security of their information and the availability of our software and services are paramount.

Choosing the best data center to house our servers and associated infrastructure wasn’t a snap decision. We researched several data center solutions, finally settling on ours after numerous on-site visits and discussions with the data center staff regarding the features and benefits of their colocation services. Based on our experience, we can offer the following tips for choosing a reliable data center:

More of the SmarterTools blog post

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1. The Cloud = Business for the Data Center Industry

About once a week I still see goofy headlines asserting that cloud computing is bad news for data centers. The reality, which became crystal clear in 2011, is that the growth of cloud computing means big business for the data center industry. Virtual servers don’t magically float in the clouds. They all live in physical servers, inside data centers. Cloud technologies have driven demand for more efficient data center space that can support higher-density computing workloads. That trend manifests itself in many ways – a hardware refresh, or a data center retrofit, or outsourcing to a cloud specialist, or leasing colocation space or wholesale data center suites. Cloud growth at Rackspace means more leasing for DuPont Fabros, international expansion for Salesforce.com means more business for NTT, and Twitter’s need for impoved latency and redundancy means business for QTS. Not to mention that the data center providers who were most aggressive about moving into enterprise cloud, Terremark and Savvis, were both acquired this year. On virtually all fronts, 2011 was the year in which cloud computing moved from discussion to dollars, and the data center industry was a major beneficiary.

2. Modularity Goes Mainstream

Another technology that saw adoption shift gears was the modular data center. The trend was solidified by a steady stream of announcements of new projects and new customers – something that had been conspicuously absent during the first few years of containerized offerings. It wasn’t just the number of modules, either.

More of the Data Center Knowledge article from Rich Miller

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Is your internal data center expensive to operate? Forget what’s in the racks. I’m not talking about servers, networking equipment and storage. I’m talking about facilities: your raised floor, your security, your power, your cooling, your telecommunications infrastructure and your fire suppression. How expensive is it to maintain?

Operating a data center in-house is expensive. Real estate floor space costs, raised flooring, reliable air conditioning systems, specialized security and fire protection all drive up the data center capital costs. Small data centers can easily exceed $1 million in capital up front.

Data center power and cooling redundancy is expensive. Multiple UPS systems are fairly common. Dual generators are rare. Rarer still are in-house data centers have two utility feeds. Data center capital costs are high, but the costs of maintaining and operating generators and UPS systems are high as well. N+N data center redundancy (two of everything) is prohibitively expensive for many organizations. You can’t deliver high uptime without power and cooling redundancy, yet uptime requirements continue to rise.

Staffing is expensive. Do you dedicate half an FTE or more to the maintenance of the data center?

Data center compliance and certifications are expensive. SAS70 (Now SSAE 16) data center certification audits start at about $20,000. Other certifications like the Uptime Institute’s Tier IV data center certification can cost more.

Not only are the data center capital and operating costs high, they’re also unpredictable.

How do you control costs?

Wholesale colocation offers an interesting solution. Wholesale data center providers build and operate high-tech real estate. Here are a few of the reasons that organizations choose to outsource the data center facilities.

You can rent the space you need in these giant data centers.

You can still have full control of your IT equipment and telecom infrastructure.

You can benefit from N+N data center redundancy in power, cooling, and telecom to improve uptime.

In a select few outsourced hardened data centers, you can protect your mission critical systems from F5 tornadoes and other regional risks.

Some Midwest colocation providers offer you access to multiple telecommunications providers with no cross connect fees. You can build telecom hubs to better manage the money spent on telecommunications.

You can trade capital costs for operating costs.

You can build a highly predictable cost model that allows for growth and change.

Sick of getting nickel and dimed to death? Call the outsourced data center experts.

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1. Plan your timeline backwards
If you know when your exercise is going to happen, start with the date of the proposed rehearsal, and slot in everything you need to do, working in reverse chronological order. It’s easier to schedule everything this way.

2. Remember your aims at all times
Define the aims of the exercise before you start. Is it to test a particular plan, raise general awareness, encourage engagement, or even to get the boss involved? Many exercises have a number of aims. Define the most important at the outset, so you can keep checking that what you’re doing is going to meet them.

3. Don’t insist there’s a plan to test
Think you need a plan before you can hold an exercise? I disagree. Sometimes a good way to start the process is to hold an exercise, especially if you’re trying to get engagement from a wider audience. This comes back to thinking about your aims – what are you trying to get done?

4. Choose the right creator
If you’re starting from scratch, this can be tricky. Ideally you’re looking for someone who’s very logical but also creative. The logic ensures the aims are met and the plan is considered during the creation phase. The best exercises are built with a creative bent, to help make them interesting and fun for the participants. This is more important than them understanding your business, if they know the right questions to ask.

More of the Continuity Central article from Charley Newnham

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