Factors to Consider When Choosing Colocation Data Centres

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Savvy business owners have come to appreciate the benefits that colocation has to offer in terms of implementing cost-cutting measures without sacrificing access to a solid and stable IT infrastructure and network. But before subscribing to colocation services related to a companies, you must be aware that like everything in life, service providers can be rated as poor, mediocre, or excellent, based in the following key factors that must be taken into consideration in the selection process. One way to view this is to think as your company’s data centre as an integral component of your business’s productivity mechanism. You wouldn’t want to house it in just any run-of-the-mill data centre without taking a closer look at the place.

Service Uptime Guarantees. This is a no-brainer. Because your physical IT division is crucial to your business’s continued success, any interruption in server uptime, and consequently online services, can have a significant impact on day-to-day productivity. Fortunately, reputable colocation service providers offer subscribers 100% server uptime guarantees that is solidly backed by the professionally maintained hardware and reliable network of multiple ISPs and WAN connections under the trained eyes of their expert IT teams.

Uninterrupted Power Supply. Any self-respecting colocation service provider will have made allowances for the inevitable instances of power outages as a result of both scheduled power interruptions for the maintenance of the facilities of electricity providers as well as the unforeseen problems that may occur any time on any day. Thus, you should ask your prospective providers about how they can assure you of an uninterrupted power supply to your valuable data centre. Ideally, these commercial data centres will have several excellent quality generators in place.

Data centre Security. The best colocation service providers understand how important it is to keep both your system and hardware secure. Since they are fundamentally geared towards securing the data centres of multiple companies at once, the cost of implementing these security measures will have been distributed across their subscribers and therefore reduced significantly. In other words, expensive applications used to protect your data centre’s system will in effect become more affordable since it is used to safeguard several systems simultaneously at a single location. In addition, the expense associated with the requisite surveillance equipment and personnel necessary for your data centre’s physical security is also downsized since this is provided for several clients as well.

Measures against Natural Disasters. Since this is one aspect wherein colocation service providers consistently outperform in-house data centres, you have to make sure that these measures are being employed effectively and consistently. Expertly-managed retail information centers must therefore have had the foresight to choose a site with exceptional structural integrity while implementing only the very best safety measures such as an advanced fire alarm and suppression system, a management team that is fully trained and capable of responding efficiently to the advent of natural disasters in order to circumvent or minimize damage to your data centre, even going as far as coordinating with the community for additional damage-control support.

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Green Management Policies. One of the reasons that make colocations such an attractive prospect is because of the costs saved with regards to keeping your server and network equipment cooled to the ideal temperature to optimize efficiency and promote device longevity. Cooling equipment can be quite expensive, proportionately more so the smaller your physical IT division because it’s not just a matter of installing a few air conditioners and enhancing ventilation in the data centre room. This issue is compounded by the fact that the more powerful, and therefore desirable, servers generate even more heat than their predecessors. Savvy colocation service providers should not only make use of the best and most precise of cooling equipment but should be smart enough to design their use around a physical structural layout that maximizes temperature regulation efficiency (more information to go ServerSpace.co.uk).

Reliable and qualified support team. Of course, even the best of colocation policies, equipment and facilities will be wasted without the presence of an excellent onsite management team that provides steady, responsive and expert IT support. When selecting a collocation service provider, ask about staff qualifications and availability, as well as policies governing technical support services. Teams with a consistently exceptional level of knowledge and proficiency should always be available 24/7 to deal with the myriad of server and network problems that will eventually crop up effectively. One way to ensure that you will be served by qualified personnel is to ask if they are SAS 70 certified. These certifications are objectively awarded to companies that have been expertly evaluated by third parties as having consistently adhered to extraordinary standards with regards to staffing with teams that have demonstrated reliability and faultless qualifications.

More and more companies are turning to colocation services to house their IT divisions because it is associated with support system characterized by unparalleled expertise and competence and top of the line equipment and safeguarding measures, all for a very reasonable price. With the right colocation service provider, your business will be running more efficiently than ever.