Outsource data centers: are you locked in?

I have been working with an old friend for many months, investigating his alternatives in moving out of his existing outsourced computer room facility and into Lifeline Data Centers. His existing outsource computer room facility was chosen by a predecessor. The existing provider has a number of features that are problematic for my old friend:

Not a carrier neutral data center – The existing provider sells company circuits over all others. There is a premium for the clients to buy circuits directly from the carriers, and there are only three choices other than the providers circuits.

Colocation-owned point-to-point circuits – The client has been expanding and has purchased point-to-point circuits from the colocation provider. This has essentially locked him into the colo provider because it would be so expensive to exit these contracts, which all have differing termination dates.

Cross-connect fees – The client pays monthly add-on fees for the circuits that are directly with the carrier. With eight circuits, these add up to about $600 per month.

No data center power redundancy – The colocation provider has a single power feed from the public utility. Even though they advertise multiple UPS and PDUs (this cracks me up), the reality is that they have experienced multiple outages because of the lack of data center redundancy. My friend needs 99.995% uptime. But my friend has no sensible way to get out of his contracts without paying exorbitant termination fees.

No hardened data center facilities – The provider has concrete walls and a steel decked roof. A tornado would suck the roof right off the building. Does that make sense?

So what’s the point? Be careful when you select an outsource data center provider. Don’t let your vendor gain a choke hold on you and your business. What should you be looking for?

• Carrier neutral data centers
• No cross connect fees
• Data center power redundancy
• Fair, simple data center pricing model
• Hardened data center facilities

Looking for a better alternative? Call Lifeline Data Centers at 317.423.2591.

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.