So far, we have looked at Getting the best from regional telecom suppliers, and Getting the best from international connectivity. This week, we will be focusing on how to choose the best datacenter service supplier for your business.
Companies looking to outsource their business’ critical data need to spend time finding the most suitable locations, comparing the competition on the market. They should be looking for best deals that meet their security concerns, strategies and budgets, for now and into the future.
This article offers some observations and considerations that a telecom professional would apply in the process of finding the most suitable supplier/customer match. While we will be concentrating on the Swiss market, the majority of the advice is relevant globally.
Why off-site data storage?
Following the tragic 9/11 events in New York City, finance companies in particular began re-appraising how they handle their business’ critical data, and how it should be best protected. Keeping everything in one location was no longer a sensible option. It is now common to consider storing data ‘off-site’ (away from offices that use the data) in one or more locations, for backup or archiving purposes.
Data handling legislation
The recent ‘Edward Snowden’ security breach, where as a contractor to the US National Security Agency, he copied and publically distributed classified information, has also had an impact on how data security is being handled all over the world.
As an example, new laws in the EU stipulate that all ‘personal data’ held on its residents should be stored within EU geographical boundaries. Individual countries have adopted the same approach, as reflected in the regulations for storing personal data within Russia. Defining ‘personal data’ has proven complicated, as cross-border trading still has to carry on.
Banks particularly wish to keep data within country borders, and can insist that data transmission between their sites be kept within a national footprint.
Changes in legislation is also increasing demand for more, in-country, secure data storage and archiving facilities, and is therefore driving a very competitive datacenter market. The ‘Snowden’ effect has also made companies think more seriously about encryption of data when stored or during its transmission, a subject considered in the next article in this series.
In-house or outsourced?
Building dedicated, ‘in-house’ (own location), datacenter facilities is one option for companies that have more than one building location available, and where keeping data ‘close’ is a major concern. This solution can be extremely expensive and very resource-heavy. Creating in-house facilities can also jeopardize the future flexibility for office logistics. Shifting facilities and connected networks is a costly business. To build, operate, modify and maintain sites has serious budget implications (materials and resources). This is generally not an option for companies where budgets are limited and managing data isn’t part of their core business or ‘in-house’ skill base.
Demand has risen for cost effective storage solutions, using purpose built, secure datacenter facilities, which can be shared by multiple occupants. These datacenters are built by specialists in the field of facility infrastructure, and designed to meet recognized industry standards. They aim to create a controlled environment, with an infrastructure that allows all customers to benefit from a centralized investment.
Shared datacenter services
Customers have varied requirements for their data storage, and datacenter operators must be able to support a wide range of demands. This includes the type of colocation space preferred and the methods used for secure access control.
Some companies will lease private, lockable rooms and may install and manage all their own rack infrastructure and equipment. Others may be content with taking a secure caged area in a shared customer space. Smaller businesses may be satisfied with just renting a small rack space in a controlled common area.
Datacenters provide comprehensive plant management services, covering the supply of mains and support power, environmental control, fire and flood monitoring and protection. Sites should offer 24h/7 controlled access to its customers, with security managed by CCTV and badged or biometric access (various types), controlled at several points throughout the facility. Some larger datacenters have round the clock on-site manpower cover. Others rely on contracted call-out procedures.
Remote hands and eyes
Many datacenters offer ‘remote hands and eyes’ services where they provide their own qualified technicians, under agreed contract terms, to monitor and carry out simple to complex tasks on behalf of customers, providing them with part-time outsourced labour. This obviously benefits customers located long distances from their storage locations, with ‘time to respond’ to events being equivalent to having their own resources on site.
Datacenter performance ratings
Operational performance of a datacenter is generally rated in Tiers (1-4). This relates to quality of power supply, cooling maintenance and ability to maintain service continuity. A full description of the Tier levels can be found on the Uptime Institute website. Tier 1 represents the lowest measured availability potential and Tier 4 the highest.
Some businesses may be ok with suffering some minor operational downtime (periodic loss of service), maybe where they only use a datacenter for ‘non-live’ data storage replication services, such as archiving. For these companies, Tier 1 and 2 facilities can be sufficient.
For businesses looking for highest service availability and minimum downtime, Tier 3 and 4 datacenters are the ones for consideration. Tier 3 datacenters are the more common of the two on the market and meet most customer’s requirements. These higher rated datacenters are designed to enable replacement of equipment and connections (upgrade and repair) without affecting the customer continuity of service.
Datacenter accreditation
Any credible datacenter must offer, at minimum, an industry-recognized, quality infrastructure. This should be supported by processes and services that meet stringent ISO registration standards. Important examples are ISO 27001 (Information Security Management System specifications) and ISO9001 (Quality Management System specifications).
Sustainability
When committing a sizeable budget to long term offsite storage, a company needs to have trust in choosing the right location and provider. Long term sustainability is key to meeting company growth strategies. A site’s capability to enable future expansion and ongoing access to other service suppliers and customers is an important concern. Prospective customers need to be diligent in validating a datacenter’s own development plans (available space and power supplies) along with production of viable, current registration and trading credentials.
What about on-site interconnection charges? It’s worth noting that internal cabling in many datacenters, e.g. connecting customers to suppliers or to other customers, will come with one-time installation fees. Yet many also charge ongoing leasing fees (per connection), which can add up to a sizeable recurring cost. It is worth discussing this arrangement up-front with the datacenter.
A few private datacenters strategically control other suppliers’ access to their locations (especially telecom operator-owned datacenters). This obliges customers to depend on the owners’ services, or a limited range of suppliers which may be co-located in the same datacenter. This could suit an initial partnership agreement for a small business, maybe using the operator’s datacenter and managed services to connect to their initial customers. However, it may also restrict access to future suppliers, customers and services for future growth.
Matching a datacenter to specific needs
How do companies go about finding the right datacenter solution? They may wish to locate their data in a particular city or region, or have strategic reasons to put their data in more than one datacenter.
Decisions on whether the datacenter should be close to (considering data network connectivity charges or ongoing resource travelling costs), or remote from a company’s own office locations (meeting data storage distance laws for a particular industry, like banking) have to be considered.
What about a company’s existing customer base, or proposed target audience? Is there a strategic requirement for gaining access to specific suppliers or international markets? The list of questions that need to be asked goes on.
Also, many companies may not be aware that the physical siting of a datacenter is key. Airport flight paths, railway lines, proximity to rivers could mean potential flooding and risk of major incidents associated with petrol stations or gas storage facilities. These are the more obvious risks to be considered as part of a site assessment. An initially ‘preferred’ site location may not always be suitable!
Leasing and sub-leasing datacenter space
Service providers are usually able to sub-lease the space they rent, offering colocation services or web storage facilities to their own customers. This may be seen as competing with the building owners, but it’s usually presented as part of a wider business model. This can allow them to provide a range of value-added services not normally available directly from a pure (neutral) colocation company. It is common practice in shared facilities.
Network packages, offered by service providers to customers, can include flexible rack space options, equipment supply, internet access, managed connectivity services and much more, all supported by co-location (infrastructure and services) Service Level Agreements (SLAs) held with the datacenter company. Datacenters benefit from resultant growth in their customer footprints, and customers can benefit from taking a one-supplier contract for their overall telecom services solution. It’s a win-win-win scenario.
Customers with larger data management and storage needs will more likely take direct colocation contracts with the datacenter, and contract independently with other service suppliers for their connectivity solutions.
Cloud service providers tend to lease space within shared datacenters, locating their customer servers in well-connected sites to suit their strategic business plans. Their business models may need to consider reacting to changing legislative controls, such as location of personal data storage, so choosing the right location is very important to their business development.
Global players, like Amazon and Microsoft have sufficient business to justify building their own dedicated datacenters which also need to be well connected to international telecom networks and other key datacenter hubs.
Telco Connectivity
Looking to connect and work with multiple telco operators requires consideration of locating in ‘carrier neutral’ datacenter locations. These are datacenters where any network supplier is allowed to locate and provide services. The range of suppliers connected to, or located in a datacenter could have an impact on a company’s particular development strategy. Where the existing customer base of a datacenter may include a particular business target, it may also attract competitors to a company’s own products! So commercial awareness must always be current, as there is always a chance that another supplier could steal the business.
Not all datacenters offer the same external network options. The connectivity market is very competitive, and network availability and costs need serious consideration.
Connecting business locations into datacenters is another important costing exercise. It requires equal scrutiny to that of finding a datacenter. If a company is to make the best out of what services are available, it must check both location and connectivity terms and overheads in the same project. The subject of network connectivity suppliers is addressed in my previous articles.
Storing data in Switzerland
Switzerland’s central location in Europe draws businesses looking to operate across the region. It has exceptional transport infrastructure (air, rail and roads). Favorable tax conditions have attracted a high number of corporations to locate their headquarters in Switzerland. High-level data traffic, in turn, affects the ongoing demand for quality datacenter facilities in the country. Multiple international telecom networks choose to pass through the country, connecting main cities and datacenters, and facilitating the picking up small and large corporate business along the way.
Swiss data protection laws are well suited to the telecom industry. National legislation continues to react in line with European neighbors, with increased demand for security against terrorist and hacker threats, and secure management of data handling services. Swiss confidentiality laws (data protection), are written into the country’s constitution.
A wide choice of suppliers
The Swiss market offers a wide assortment of datacenter locations (61+), with some purposely located close to or within key cities and others strategically placed in suburban or remote rural areas (even hidden inside bomb-proof mountain bunkers).
There are many privately-owned datacenters, varying in size and capability. Some higher profile ‘Swiss’ datacenters include Safe Host, located in Geneva, Avenches and Gland, Green.ch in Lupwig and Zürich, Deltalis in Attinghaussen (Swiss Alps), Brainserve in Lausanne and Swisscolocation in Ticino.
Some utility companies also provide datacenter services, like ewb in Bern and IWB in Basel, offering access services to and from their own city networks. Operators may choose to have agreements with these local datacenter/network providers for ease of processing access requests in the local market.
Internationally-run group datacenters are present in larger cities with financial market access. For example, Equinix (headquartered in the US) has sites worldwide and in Zurich and Geneva, and Interxion (headquartered in Amsterdam) has sites located in many of Europe’s major cities including Zurich. These ‘international’ locations tend to also act as ‘carrier hotels’ where multiple international and national telecom suppliers converge to trade their services with each other and the local markets. International colocation deals tend to drive businesses to these larger datacenter players, getting access to one contract covering multiple locations around the globe, however, some prefer locally run locations which meet a specific need.
Some network operators also offer datacenter services in Switzerland including Swisscom, Colt and Interoute but most other network players choose to use space in purpose built carrier neutral sites, and to sub-lease services as part of a more open market approach.
Where are these datacenters?
A useful resource for identifying datacenter locations worldwide, is the Data Center Map website. Relevant contact details are listed, along with information a datacenter wishes to advertise, for example, regarding its infrastructure and services. A ‘request quotes’ button is available for users, but many of the datacenters choose not to activate this option, as they prefer direct contact and negotiation with prospects, as well as using their own query processes.
Summary
Some datacenter locations may propose unique benefits, such as location and support, which can be used in a customer’s marketing strategy. So it pays to do homework and compare what’s really on offer.
Good deals can be negotiated, but only if real market information is used to make comparisons (technical and commercial). It’s very important to have a clear development strategy. Creating working space within a datacenter can involve high capital investment. It’s not something companies want to do often, so it’s key to get it right first time. Think about company strategy, for now and into the future, and aim to build a strong, trusting relationship with the chosen providers. That will help with maintaining peace of mind and confidence.
Photo credit: jorisamonen via Pixabay, CC0 Public Domain License
