CoreSite welcomes Scott Arnett, CEO at Arnett Services Group, as a guest blogger on Connect[ed]. Arnett Group offers IT services encompassing all aspects of data center relocation, including consultative guidance, security as well as expert logistics planning and hands-on moving.
If you look at it from my perspective, a data center relocation is as much an opportunity as it is a challenge. Why? A data center move presents the opportunity to assess your infrastructure, develop a strategy tailored to the unique IT requirements of your enterprise and then build an IT environment optimized for current and future needs.
Let me take a step back for a moment. I founded Arnett Services Group when I recognized that most companies have little or no experience with data center migration. My roots are in enterprise IT, so I know first-hand that it’s not until a company really considers all the steps and details – and then starts to map out how to bring this to fruition – that they realize the expertise and manpower required to get it done. That’s true whether it’s a move to a new facility across the parking lot (we are in the middle of just such a project) or a large-enterprise initiative in which infrastructure is being consolidated at a data center in another state.
Many companies are coming to us now because their workforce is remote, or they’ve transitioned to a hybrid model. Every square foot of a building is an asset, after all, and they are rethinking how to get the best value from it.
Also, lots of organizations are just now going to the cloud, while early adopters are repatriating services from public clouds to control costs. In both situations, they are evaluating whether it makes good sense to have an on-premises data center, in light of operating costs for office space and the staffing required to run it, and how colocation can fit into their go-forward IT modernization strategy.
Every Migration is Unique
You might not associate customization, resilience and scalability with data center relocation services. Actually, all those apply in a couple of ways. The steps in a data center project lifecycle reach beyond a site audit and inventorying equipment to assessing the network configuration and application dependencies and developing a roadmap for IT configurations. Every move plan is custom because every company has a different vision for their technology future-state.
That roadmap can incorporate augmenting IT processes. For example, disaster recovery is often part of a project cycle for IT teams. It’s not uncommon for the plan to go untouched for a few years. We can help an organization move DR into operations, so that it’s properly revisited, refreshed and exercised. The roadmap could include colocation, which provides more resilience as well as the opportunity to customize the deployment and expand without building out their own data center. We can even help a company develop an RFP for distribution to data center providers, as one part of our virtual CISO service.
Here’s where another type of scalability comes in. If you research Arnett Group, you will find that the core staff is relatively small. Thanks to decades in the business, we are able to bring in technicians as needed, at the right scale for the project. That might be five people or as many as 80, but they are all tech-savvy people who know both how to handle the equipment and what it does.
Customer Experience Defines Success
Customization and flexibility are two big factors that cemented our decision to work with CoreSite. They are ready to customize a colocation deployment for any size business, whether it’s best suited for “retail colocation” or “wholesale colocation” and all degrees of scale in between. Similarly, we will get involved as much or as little as our customers need – that’s flexibility.
We work with CoreSite because they understand that when a company opts for a migration into a third-party data center, it is trusting both of us with business-critical assets. It seems risky. In fact, our solutions partnership helps reduce risk, because after the relocation, those assets are in facilities built to stand up against weather events and power outages. One of our recent engagements was with a company whose on-premises data center was down due to a hurricane. They simply didn’t think they would ever need to be ready for one. CoreSite data centers are designed to stand up to Mother Nature, equipped with redundant power backups and manned 24/7 with ops technicians and security staff. That takes the risk of down time pretty much out of the equation.
The experience customers have before, during and after a data center relocation defines success for CoreSite and Arnett Group. Communication is key to all aspects of the relationship, for all the parties involved. CoreSite is super responsive. We talk over our clients’ needs and the occasional bump in the road that can come along with a relocation, and the bump is smoothed out.
Are you thinking about relocating your data center? The best next step is to get in touch with CoreSite through your account representative or via the website at: www.coresite.com.