Co-location data centers: It's about the uptime

The benefits of co-location data centers

The CIO-level business angle on the latest tech

In mid September, Hurricane Ike struck a major blow to Houston, the nation’s fourth largest city and the global center of the energy industry. Much of the city was without power for weeks, leaving Houston’s business hubs in the dark or surviving off generator power. In the midst of all the chaos, one nondescript building just a few miles outside of downtown proved to be a fortress for more than a few companies and their data centers. This building is the home of CyrusOne, a Tier 4 data center facility providing corporate co-location services. Inside this building, it was like Ike never happened; not a single customer felt so much as a blip from the storm.

CyrusOne’s continuous availability guarantee is one reason so many companies co-locate their critical business applications there. According to CEO David Ferdman, there are numerous reasons why companies enter into a data center co-location arrangement, but for CyrusOne customers, uptime is everything. In this newsletter, we look at the various benefits of outsourcing data center operations to a co-location provider.

The facility

Co-location allows an organization to run its business applications without having to worry about the issues and costs associated with building and maintaining an onsite data center. Instead, the co-location provider is responsible for providing a facility with secure floor space, cooling, fire suppression, primary power, backup power, telecommunications and networking, physical access controls, and everything else associated with continuous uptime and reliability. For many companies, regardless of size, it just makes sense to let someone else worry about all the physical aspects of creating a secure and stable computing environment.

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In mid September, Hurricane Ike struck a major blow to Houston, the nation’s fourth largest city and the global center of the energy industry. Much of the city was without power for weeks, leaving Houston’s business hubs in the dark or surviving off generator power. In the midst of all the chaos, one nondescript building just a few miles outside of downtown proved to be a fortress for more than a few companies and their data centers. This building is the home of CyrusOne, a Tier 4 data center facility providing corporate co-location services. Inside this building, it was like Ike never happened; not a single customer felt so much as a blip from the storm.

CyrusOne’s continuous availability guarantee is one reason so many companies co-locate their critical business applications there. According to CEO David Ferdman, there are numerous reasons why companies enter into a data center co-location arrangement, but for CyrusOne customers, uptime is everything. In this newsletter, we look at the various benefits of outsourcing data center operations to a co-location provider.

The facility

Co-location allows an organization to run its business applications without having to worry about the issues and costs associated with building and maintaining an onsite data center. Instead, the co-location provider is responsible for providing a facility with secure floor space, cooling, fire suppression, primary power, backup power, telecommunications and networking, physical access controls, and everything else associated with continuous uptime and reliability. For many companies, regardless of size, it just makes sense to let someone else worry about all the physical aspects of creating a secure and stable computing environment.

For example, Ferdman points out that CyrusOne’s Houston facility is located in a reinforced building meant to withstand 170 mile-per-hour winds. The building is elevated to safeguard it from Houston’s infamous flooding, and it has redundant power and telecommunication sources. There are multiple backbone providers delivering network diversity. The building even has its own water source separate from municipal facilities for emergency situations.

The average business couldn’t begin to build a data center that approaches these specifications for a physical facility. “It’s very expensive to build a data center,” says Ferdman. “Our customers can leverage our investment in all the redundant systems rather than buy and install them for themselves.”

Reliability and uptime

Business today never stops; we are in a continual 24/7 world. That means business applications can never be down, not even for planned maintenance. Downtime can cost a company in lost sales, opportunities and productivity, so many organizations are placing mission-critical equipment and applications in a co-located data center to be assured of 99.99% uptime reliability.

The facility is one aspect of ensuring uptime; 24/7 support is another. Co-location providers maintain a certified and trained staff to monitor the customers’ infrastructures and take action when needed to assure uptime reliability. For example, if there is a hardware failure, a member of the service provider’s staff can swap out the equipment promptly so the customer doesn’t have to make a site visit. This support also ensures that an organization’s staff can concentrate on their business expertise and eliminates the need to provide a technical staff to work in shifts.

Linda Musthaler is a principal analyst with Essential Solutions Corporation.