Introduction
Data centres fall strictly in the business to business arena so the term data centre is therefore alien to the majority of the general public. Data centres are effectively large computer rooms or facilities dedicated to the accommodation of computer and networking hardware and associated telecommunications equipment. Data centres provide guaranteed regulated power supplies, hardware and network security and internet connectivity. They are usually located separately from the main business headquarters and can be owned by the business itself or by a 3rd party specialist service provider. Co-location and co-location hosting are terms used to describe the location of equipment for multiple clients within the same data centre. The huge growth in the demand for co-location services over the last couple of decades has been fuelled by the increasing reliance of businesses on mission critical IT systems.
Here are eight of the most compelling reasons for a business to outsource the housing and management of its computing facilities.
1. Cost savings
In house computer hardware often occupies precious space in prime office locations with rents at 50 per square fmsi wind netbookfoot per annum being commonplace in London. Locating computing facilities remotely allows this prime space to be better used. If office space is a constraint, then re-locating computer facilities may even allow the deferment of a whole office relocation. The cost of computing facilities extends far beyond the cost of the rent of course and may include a substantial energy bill for air conditioning, additional staffing to maintain the facilities and so on. Access to 3rd party data centre expertise may also provide the catalyst for server consolidation, enabling a reduction in the overall investment in computing hardware. It may also be possible to negotiate lower insurance premiums for business interruption policies as insurers encourage and treat favourably those businesses that take more responsibility for managing their own risk.
2. Budgeting and planning
Closely related to the benefit of cost reductions, yet a distinct benefit, is the advantage of predictability of costs that automatically ensues from contracting fixed cost 3rd party services over a period lasting typically several years. This removes all the risks of having to meet unforeseen costs and removes the headache of financial planning for the IT department.
3. Resilience
Data centres have redundancy built-in to their hardware and telecommunications infrastructure so, in the event of failure of any component of hardware or service such as power failure, back up systems can provide virtually a 100% up time guarantee. Examples of resources increasing resilience are uninterruptible power supplies, dual power feeds, virtual server hosting and automated back up procedures. Many service providers have contractual arrangements with other data centres, so under extreme circumstances, data centres can be switched which is another example of built-in redundancy.
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