CIO Strategy: Why the simplicity of wholesale colocation may be your best choice – Part 1

Data center uptime has become the one of the most important quality metrics for today’s successful enterprise. More organizations depend on their computer systems to:

• sell their products and services online via e-commerce
• deliver core services
• manufacture products
• manage logistics
• communicate with clients, vendors and remote staff

The Rated-4 data center standard of 99.995% uptime (28 minutes of downtime per year or less) is fast becoming the minimum acceptable downtime level for an organization’s most important computer applications. If an hour’s worth of downtime in the middle of the day hobbles your business and costs you revenue, profits, or clients, please read on.

What are the options for managing the risk of downtime?

You can build an enterprise data center in-house, but the cost of a 99.995% uptime facility means that you need at least two of everything: two utility feeds, two generators, two UPS systems, and two air conditioning systems. You’ll also need a hardened data center facility that is built to withstand regional disasters. In-house data centers offer you the highest level of control. But in-house data centers can be expensive, capital intensive and expensive to maintain. If you compromise at any level, whether it’s one utility feed, one generator, one UPS system , or one air conditioner, you increase your risk of downtime by an order of magnitude.

Your other option is to use outsource data center and/or managed services providers to manage your risk of downtime. In part 2, I”ll cover the variety of options available.

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.