Affordable Colocation – Calculating the real cost of your computer room

Does calculating the real cost of your in-house computer room makes colocation seem more affordable?

Many companies are faced with changes to their computer rooms. Whether they are moving the computer room or trying to expand the space, power and cooling, the choice boils down to spending money on an internal data center or considering outsource data center space, also know as colocation or outsource computer room facilities.

Many factors play into a decision to move a data center off-site. A company’s mission-critical applications must behave well in an off-site data center. The cost of data center downtime affects the decision. Power costs can have great impact. Data center certification and compliance requirements are a factor.

Yet in many businesses, the cost of the data center’s electrical power is rarely assigned to the IT department. Decision makers in the finance and IT departments should consider this hidden cost when evaluating new projects.

For a small business in Indianapolis with:

• one rack of server equipment
• 2 UPS systems
• router
• firewall
• 2 switches
• 30 workstations
• 10 printers

electrical usage is roughly 9 KW/hr. Cooling is another 18 KW/hr for a total of $1167 per month. Approximately $525 per month is for the servers and communications equipment.

Compare this pricing to an outsource data center: $850 per rack per month plus the cost of a telecommunications circuit. Affordable colocation is a reality. By using an outsourcer’s hardened data center, your are protecting your systems from critical downtime. If the provider offers Rated-4 data center facilities, you’ll also be improving uptime via redundant power and cooling systems.

The idea of using a Midwest colocation provider may be the right choice for your business. Outsource data center facilities offer the advantage of large data center facilities at affordable prices for small business.

Alex Carroll

Managing Member at Lifeline Data Centers

Alex, co-owner, is responsible for all real estate, construction and mission critical facilities: hardened buildings, power systems, cooling systems, fire suppression, and environmentals. Alex also manages relationships with the telecommunications providers and has an extensive background in IT infrastructure support, database administration and software design and development. Alex architected Lifeline’s proprietary GRCA system and is hands-on every day in the data center.