Is anyone keeping an eye on the power?

I talked to a company last week who has been thinking about moving their data center. They have been talking with us for months about moving from another outsource data center into Lifeline. The company is an Internet Services Provider. All of their products are Internet-centric services. The company delivers Internet, web hosting, and applications to their clients.

The company was interested in Lifeline Data Centers for a few reasons. First, they could aggregate bandwidth from multiple carriers with no monthly cross-connect fees. This let them keep bandwidth costs low and maintain good margins. They also liked Lifeline’s data center power redundancy: Lifeline’s N+N power and HVAC configuration could support their needs for high uptime. One of the company’s owners liked the idea of Lifeline “always keeping an eye on the power.”

Last week, I spoke to them again. Some parts of their business are in decline, and other parts are growing. To cut costs, they are moving all their equipment out of the old outsource data center and into their new office building.

Are they really cutting costs?

What would a prolonged power outage cost this company ? ALL of the services they deliver rely on power, Internet services and application availability. Will their customers stay customers if a backhoe digs up the power line in front of the new office building and knocks out power for 8 hours? Or will the clients look elsewhere at the hundreds of vendors offering the same services for lower prices?

What is the company’s cost of losing a deal to a competitive Internet Services Provider? Will the competition win the deal because they have data center compliance, certifications, F5 tornado resistant data center buildings, and more telecom choices?

Who’s keeping an eye on your power? Who’s making sure that your computer room reliability is better than your competition? Who’s helping you take care of your clients?

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.