How To Choose the Right Data Center for your Business.

If I want to be connected to the Internet, I simply go to a hosting provider and order it. I know nothing about servers, processors, bare metal servers, and such like. I just get my access and am happy with it. 

In the case of businesses for which storage and transferring of information is the key priority and which cannot allow the slightest datum to be lost, my way is not the option.   

Today’s eCommerce exceeds the limits of having a website with just a price list and contacts – businesses often supply their clients with multifunctional mobile and desktop apps, render online services and pursue immediate transactions of huge amounts of data. 

Here owning a data center or moving one’s server(s) to a new data center can be considered, as this may be seen as the highest level of controlling the data. But is finding the optimal solution as simple as for an average user? Surely, not. 

Data Center

 Levels of Evaluating a Data Center

Data centers are literally rooms loaded with computer facilities and servers. Data centers’ main function is to manage myriads of data. How well it is achieved in each instance depends on several factors which you certainly have to bear in mind before taking a decision including the price of servers that are used in that specific data center.

  1. Location

The most important and durable attribute for choosing a data center is its location. First, its proximity will secure top-of-the-line performance of your network. Secondly, for obvious reasons, a data center should not be located in a disaster-prone area. Places with poor infrastructure are also not the best solution for such mission-critical structures. In addition, a data center remoteness will tell on the price. 

  1. Power & Cooling System

Enough power and unbreakability are the key factors. A good data center energizes by employing an independent substation and thus it enables power for its environment in the amount required. Definitely, it should also be a plan for an urgent case as not a power substation can guarantee 100% uptime. 

Another damaging factor is overheating which is a most vicious enemy of the servers’ appropriate operation. Thus, for a good data center a reliable cooling system is a must.

  1. Steady Progression & Restorability

A data center’s long-term prospects ought to be clear. It determines the data center’s ability to maintain properly the environment and services offered. Needless to say, data centers employ industry-standard facilities designed to enable the highest production possible. 

To be restorable then is regarded not only as being capable to repair each component of the equipment, but as ability to keep the servers performance unceasing for the clients, too. 

  1. Accomplishment

To secure the future, anatomize the past. A little “study on history” should be undertaken in order to make sure that the data center’s production is satisfactory for ready-existing clientele. 

  1. Issue of Security

Security is listed here the last, but not to be seen as the least important. For data centers, safety means capability to stand up both virtual and physical threats. Therefore, the data center must have a multistage system of access to the environment. And of course, not a datum of your personal information can be accessible for leakage. There must be considered mechanisms of protection for hardware and software. 

A Good Way To Start Exploring Your Data Center-to-Be

You want to check the data center’s reliability, but how to do this? You can simply examine its Uptimes Institute Certificate based upon a certain classification of data centers according to which any data center can have one of four tiers. To have a more rigorous view click this link, and here is the tiers shorter profile:

  • Tier 1. The lowest one and the cheapest. Such a data center offers a minimum set of services, often enough for smaller companies. A serious shortage here is the absence of a data backup and recovery system. It results in:

          99,671% Uptime 

          28,8 hours downtimes per year

  • Tier 2. A sort of tier 1 a bit improved. There’s no full backup ability, but a tier 2 data center has an energy-saving technique and a more advanced cooling system. Thus, its figures are a bit better: 

          99,742% Uptime

          22 hours downtime per year

  • Tier 3. It may be a good solution for many businesses as this tier data center assures much more reliable production for its clients. This includes an additional distribution channel to keep the servers run in case of trouble with the main one. The effect is obvious:

          99.98% Uptime

          <1,6 hours downtime per year

  • Tier 4. The highest level of data centers equipped to the fullest extent. They have numerous distribution channels, sophisticated power and cooling systems, thus the output is the following:

          99,995% Uptime

          29 minutes downtime per year

So, to find an optimal solution, a business should first evaluate its own needs and objectives and then make a thorough examination of data centers in terms of their compliance with the above-stated requirements. The tier classification can be very helpful in this respect. 



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