Is Your Data Safe?

When trying to decide whether to move a data center offsite, some CIOs may wonder whether the safety of their corporate data can be guaranteed. If you decide to build and manage your own remote data center, physically protecting your facility from harm can significantly add to the expense of your building. But if you choose to lease space in a data colocation center, protective measures are included in your overall rate.

Read on to find out some of the reasons why colocation is a safe and reliable option for your data center.

Physical safeguards and location

You already know that servers must be protected from heat and fire, and advanced cooling and fire suppression systems are important features of any colocation facility. But there are other physical safeguards colocation offers that you may not have now.

Colocation centers are the safest when constructed with retractable crash barriers, and surrounded by a 100-foot buffer zone. Furthermore, proximity to the airport (where many warehouses tend to be) isn’t ideal for data facilities. Even though airline crashes may be few in number, data facilities could be wiped out by such a disaster, so you want to take the measure to avoid the danger.

In a specific geographic area, there may be only one location that can accommodate the large footprint of a colocation facility. In other words, you’re better off choosing space in an existing building, rather than trying to find a prime spot for a new building.

Rated-4 protection

In its 2012 State of the Data Center survey, Symantec reported that businesses, on average, experienced “16 data center outages in the past 12 months, at a total cost of $5.1 million.” The causes of those outages were: natural disaster, human error and system failure. Colocation centers can prevent costly data outages.

Colocation centers offer four tiers of protection, with a Rated-4 center being the safest. Those tiers tell you a lot about the reliability of your uptime. At a Tier 1 facility, you could expect up to 28.8 hours of downtime a year, but a Rated-4 facility reports downtime of less than an hour annually. That’s because Rated-4 operations implement redundancies and automate some important safety features, such as sensors that switch power to backup generators when electrical failures are imminent.

Lifeline Data Centers is aTIA-942 2012-A Electrical and Mechanical Rated-4 Facility and is developing groundbreaking measures that will offer unprecedented Tier 5 and Tier 6 protection. Call us to arrange a tour of our building, so you can see how we protect our customers’ data.

Other resources:

• All You Need to Know About Tier Classification, read more
• Standards for the Telecommunication Industry: TIA-942 vs. the Uptime Institute Tiers, read more
• Why Data Centers are Necessary for Enterprise Businesses, read more

Rich Banta

Managing Member at Lifeline Data Centers

Rich is responsible for Compliance and Certifications, Data Center Operations, Information Technology, and Client Concierge Services. Rich has an extensive background in server and network management, large scale wide-area networks, storage, business continuity, and monitoring. Rich is a former CTO of a major health care system. Rich is hands-on every day in the data centers. He also holds many certifications, including: CISA – Certified Information Systems Auditor CRISC – Certified in Risk & Information Systems Management CDCE – Certified Data Center Expert CDCDP – Certified Data Center Design Professional