* The benefits of co-location data centers
As the expense of building and operating an in-house data center climbs, it makes more sense than ever to consider co-locating business applications to an outsourced data center. This article outlines the benefits, including reliability/uptime, security, cost management, business continuity, and more.
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.
Business Continuity / Disaster Preparation
When CyrusOne opened its Houston facility in 2001, it immediately picked up new customers that were stunned by the loss of their own computing facilities when a 500-year flood struck the city. Co-location providers help their customers plan and prepare for business continuity in the face of a disaster.
For instance, prior to and during Hurricane Ike, CyrusOne stayed in constant contact with its clients to let them know the status of their systems. Every client was offered space in the data center facility to allow critical employees to monitor and operate their systems throughout and after the storm. One global energy company replicated its trading center inside the CyrusOne facility and staffed it with dozens of workers to ensure that no business was lost. Despite 110 mile-per-hour winds and massive citywide power outages, Ike had no effect on the business applications housed inside the fortress.
A co-location provider can help its clients replicate data and applications to other sites to ensure business continuity in the event of a regional disaster. If a facility in one location is knocked out, applications can continue to run in a sister location elsewhere. Ferdman says the concept of disaster recovery is outdated. “Today it’s all about applications never going down at all – not about recovering quickly after being down.”
Business agility
A co-location center can act as an overflow outlet for companies looking to grow their IT applications rapidly. “We’ve had a few companies tell us they can’t build their own data center fast enough or powerful enough to accommodate new and emerging business needs,” says Ferdman. “We can help a customer install his equipment and get his applications running within days or weeks rather than months or years.”
Security
Data center security has always been the front line defense to protecting one’s infrastructure and data. Co-location data center building security is typically tight, protected around the clock by security systems and personnel. No one gets in or out without proof of identity and all visitors are checked against customer defined access lists. Building areas are secured by alarm systems and monitored via video surveillance.
Inside the facility, each customer has its own walled-off area where all equipment is secured under lock and key. Aside from the obvious security benefits, this is a critical measure to ensure compliance with mandates such as Sarbanes-Oxley.
Cost Management
Building and maintaining an in-house data center can cost hundreds of thousands or even millions of dollars. For example, bandwidth is expensive and backup power generation is more overhead than most businesses want to tackle. Co-location can reduce or eliminate the need for this capital investment, while providing access to world-class facilities for a predictable monthly fee.
As the demands of mission-critical 24/7 business applications grow, it makes sense to consider the benefits of data center co-location. Companies can concentrate on running their business while letting someone else concentrates on running the data center.
