Why do I need a data center? I am in a high-rise structure in Denver and my IT is always up. Every day, I come to work and my phones, IT servers, and Wi-Fi are all up and running - until they are not.
Imagine if you will, a power outage taking out over six blocks of Denver’s infrastructure leaving buildings relying on small emergency generators to power an entire building – see Denver news for 11/7/2017. To further reduce reliability, these buildings only have small diesel generators with no UPS backups for load transition to keep critical IT gear alive.
Many companies residing in large structures often think the power (and cooling) are high enough quality they can run a mini data center out of them. This is an egregious error which will ultimately result in loss of IT capabilities.
Why are high-rise structures not suited for IT deployments?
- Little or no backup power. Consider a small emergency generator with a very limited amount of fuel. The landlord will not let you down on having it maintained and fully fueled all the time, right? Of course not, just like they always have the escalators up and running.
- No UPS unless you install it. And don’t forget that you can control UPS maintenance, battery acid and monitoring equipment in a poorly ventilated space. Your team will definitely not thank you for that.
- Lack of climate control. In most offices, you have the hot spots and the cold spots – which one will you be lucky enough to have for your equipment? Normally it is the smaller room with little ventilation let alone the ability to regulate humidity.
- Accessibility is limited. Smaller elevators and doors to ensure you will need to dismantle your equipment before bringing it inside.
- Lack of ISP choices. Who gets the last mile? This is often decided by the carrier that wants to take a chance on your building. Need more bandwidth quickly? You might want to move to another location as it could be quicker.
How do you solve this issue and not break the bank?
I want to keep my own equipment and team, but I don’t have a place suitable based on the criteria above.
Get your equipment in a state-of-the-art data center. Why?
- Power! Loads of CONDITIONED power with days of backup supply AND UPS to make that bounce much softer. No battery maintenance either!
- Regulated climate control with SLA backing.
- Great access – huge doors, big elevators, and nice loading docks to get your equipment in and out.
- A great selection of vendors to provide robust connectivity at a pipe size you need and can afford.
So that side of business continuity? When the building goes dark and your employees cannot access their equipment and data - what is your plan? If your servers are in a high-rise, it will probably be to look for a new employer, as you might not make it through a lengthy outage. SOLUTION? Yep, a co-lo data center enabling you to be the hero, with your data and applications served up from the cloud. Your company meetings may now be taking place at the local coffee shop, but they are just as productive as they were the day before it all went dark. And your colleagues get to tell you what a great job you did saving the day!
Unless you really want to exercise your DR plan, utilize a data center. And enjoy the praise - with a side of business continuity.
