Considerations in Choosing a Data Center
When you set out looking for a data center to match the needs of your business, you may put out a request for proposal or network to find names from other companies or conduct onsite visits. Here are some of the factors you should consider when selecting a data center:
• Liabilities and risks. What type of disaster plans does the data center have in the event of a hurricane or fire? "If a tornado comes ripping down the Interstate, what is this data center's answer to that?" Finch says. If you're going to collocate and put your equipment in that facility, you need to understand the liability and risks. If they tell you they have insurance, make sure you ask how much. "If their response comes back that you need to have insurance, you may want to keep looking," Presciutti says.
• Experience, qualifications, and references. Perform due diligence on the company to make sure that you are getting a good match to meet your needs in a data center. Ask for references and then make sure you contact them.
• Location. If you are collocating, you may want to consider the location of the data center in connection to the proximity of your IT staff.
• Uptime. These days, a growing number of businesses want to be able to access data whenever and from wherever. And if your business involves hosting data for someone else's business, then your reputation is at stake if you can't provide something on the order of 99.9 percent uptime. Ask about proposed maintenance plans or issues that might impact uptime and how often they have service interruptions.
• SAS-70 Certification. This auditing standard developed by the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants (AICPA) requires an audit of controls, including over information technology and related processes. Your business may be required to use an SAS-70 data center to win certain clients in industries that are regulated. "Our software has to be SAS-70 compliant," Finch says. "So our collocation center has to be SAS-70 compliant."
• Power. One of the most fundamental considerations is that the data center won't run out of power and will have plenty of HVAC capacity to cool the center to ensure that hardware performs at optimal levels. Ask about power cooling density, a metric that indicates how much square footage the center can cool at maximum capacity. Also inquire about backup power supplies, such as generators, and how often those generators must be used.
• Contracts and SLAs. Before committing to anything, review the contracts and service level agreements carefully. With thousands of data centers to select from in the U.S., these can vary considerably. One sign of a company that stands by its promises is if they agree to penalties for not meeting certain service levels.
As with any company you do business with, you also want to make sure that the data center you choose is run by a reputable company. "You want to understand that the corporation running the data center is financially solid and not going to get bought by another company in the next nine seconds," says Finch. "I would avoid companies that refuse to reveal their finances. You should be able to ask: What was your revenue last year? How much cash do you have in the bank? And can you show me your financial statements?"
Dig Deeper: Is it Time to Toss Your Servers?
How to Choose a Data Center: Additional Resources
Network World http://www.networkworld.com/
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Computer World - Network Security Topic Center http://www.computerworld.com/s/topic/142/Network+Security
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