Outsourced Data Centers: The Main Concern

Have you ever gone home on a nice sunny day only to notice your clocks are blinking? Have you ever been online and then realized that your connection has gone down? Both are frustrating because we are paying for services which have experienced interruptions. In the residential space, our electricity provider gives us no service level agreement. Likewise our network service providers do not provide service level agreements for our internet, TV, landline or wireless service.  When my cable service goes down, I have to locate a customer service number and then wait 30 minutes or longer to get someone on the line. Then they make me feel like an idiot, by asking me questions such as, "Is the power connected to the router? or Have you re-set the router?".

To ensure higher availability in the residential market, it is incumbent upon us as consumers to come up with our own methods of keeping the power on or keeping the internet light lit on our routers. At home, we could add a generator to our electrical system to kick on following a power outage. We could also add a secondary internet service to provide service when the primary service fails. Both are costly solutions. As a consumer, would you be willing to pay a little extra each month for a guarantee in those services? 

Many companies I speak with mention their concern for data center security. And most expect Tier 4 security found in very few data centers. The vast majority of data center operators can not afford to provide that level of security and maintain competitive pricing. Tier 3 security will usually meet most auditors standards. By using multiple data centers, companies can better protect their colocated data. 

Another concern is obviously location. When a company has support personnel in a certain area of a city, proximity becomes more of an issue. Early in my career, it was quite evident this was one of the major concerns. Companies would look at a data center map and determine the closest facilities. As connectivity has become more ubiquitous, and personnel became more spread out, location has become less of an issue. Cloud connectivity also has reduced the importance of location.

When a company evaluates a third party data center for colocation or disaster recovery, the price of services is usually a primary concern. But, it is not the most important concern. Most IT executives I speak with have application availability as their main concern. Do they trust that the data center operator will keep their systems and applications running at all times? That has always been, and will continue to be, their main concern. While one data center operator may provide them with a lower price for monthly service, they have to determine if that operator can also be the most highly available data center operator for that company's applications.

Power and connectivity are essential to application availability in data centers. You can have BGP routing, redundant connectivity routes into the data center, & multiple providers for connectivity. But, if you experience a power blip or outage, none of that makes any difference. Conversely, your data center operator could have the best, redundant power infrastructure available. However, an outage with your network service provider will keep you from connecting to those services and applications that are still on. 

You might say that the cloud would insulate your company from these concerns. But we all know that the cloud is nothing more than your data residing on someone else's infrastructure located elsewhere. The same power and connectivity issues apply. If the connection to your cloud provider goes down, so does your ability to access that information. So how do companies find a reliable data center operator to keep their applications highly available?

1. Don't make price your number one factor. An outage can cost some companies millions of dollars per minute. Saving a few dollars each month won't ever make up for the cost of a major outage. The old adage applies: "You get what you pay for."
2. Ask to see the "back of house" infrastructure that will support your environment. Take a look at the generators. Are they protected with a fence or a wall? Are the electrical lineups designed in an N+1 or 2N configuration? How is each data center providing cooling to protect your equipment? What are the maintenance schedules on each piece of the infrastructure?
3. Evaluate the network service providers that provide service to that facility. Ask to see a diagram of how each provides service to the facility. More importantly, ask each of the connectivity providers how they would continue to provide connectivity in the event of an outage.
4. Understand how power is provided to the data center. Is it a single utility feed split into A & B feeds on the data center floor? Is the data center fed by multiple utility feeds? What happens when one or more of the utility feeds becomes unavailable? How many times has the data center experienced a loss of power from a utility feed? 

In summary, While price, security, and location will always be important in the data center selection process, application uptime is the main concern for IT executives. Ask the right questions of those data center operators. Then ask those same questions to some of their customers to validate your findings. Bottom line: The most highly available data centers have invested in infrastructure and design.

If I can answer questions for you or your staff, please contact me at [email protected].