WHITE PAPER 7 Best Practices for Buying Colocation: Choosing the Best Provider for YOUR Business Needs Contents Introduction... 1 Best Practice #1 Define and Understand Your Business Goals... 1 Best Practice #2 Determine Your IT Requirements... 2 Best Practice #3 Understand the Colocation Spectrum... 4 Best Practice #4 Research Colocation Providers... 5 Best Practice #5 Tour the Facility... 7 Best Practice #6 Look at SLAs, Contracts, and Pricing Options... 9 Best Practice #7 Build a Long-Term Relationship With Your Colocation Provider... 10 Cobalt Data Centers Doc No. 2014-0612
Location, Reliability and Service: Choosing the Right Colocation Provider Introduction As IT becomes the driving force behind the global economy, it s more crucial than ever to select the right colocation provider. Today s companies live or die by how well their IT footprint stands up to the rigors of daily business. You need a robust, reliable, and efficiently managed data center environment to ensure the security and 24/7 availability of your mission-critical infrastructure. Even a short-term failure of your IT footprint can result in a loss of data and have a severe negative impact on your business. But finding the right colocation provider has never been tougher, as ever-evolving IT infrastructures become more complex, more power-hungry, and harder to manage. Fortunately, there are some best practices you can follow to identify the most-qualified colocation provider for your company s needs. Using these best practices will make it easier to find a provider who offers the specialized data center facilities and services to handle your unique IT requirements and help you achieve your business goals. Best Practice #1 Define and Understand Your Business Goals Before you even start to research and evaluate colocation providers, you first need to define your business goals in relation to your IT infrastructure, and also define your IT infrastructure goals in relation to colocation. This takes some time, thought and effort, so you should sit down with your executives and IT colleagues and map out these goals. The key questions you should ask are: What are our primary business goals for the next year, 3-5 years and beyond? How will our IT infrastructure support those goals? What colocation features do we need to support our IT infrastructure, so it can support our business goals? A clear understanding of your business and IT goals provides the foundation for your colocation requirements. For example, are you planning to expand your IT services into a new geographic region over the next couple of years? If so, you may wish to establish a new IT footprint in a data center in that region, to give customers more localized access to your servers. Are you hoping to increase customer satisfaction in Internet-based sales? If so, colocation can help you to increase the reliability of customer service by ensuring that your servers are always up and available to take orders. Some of the more common IT goals for companies seeking colocation are: Ongoing IT growth A need to scale their IT footprint as their business grows Business continuity Ensuring the availability and reliability of their servers Disaster recovery Restoring services quickly in the event of a failure 1 Cobalt Data Centers Doc No. 2015-0115-001
TM Connectivity Ensuring sufficient bandwidth to handle WAN, LAN, and Internet traffic Security of mission-critical servers and information Regulatory compliance for HIPAA, SSAE16, SOX, PCI DSS 2.0, etc. Temporary capacity The ability to add extra servers and bandwidth to handle peak periods of server/application activity and network traffic Best Practice #2 Determine Your IT Requirements Next, you should determine your IT requirements. What will you need from your colocation provider to support your business and IT goals? Things to consider include: Location Simply put, how close or far away does your IT footprint need to be from your business location? Will your IT employees need to stop by the data center to check your servers every week or month? If so, look for a colocation provider with a data center that is within 4 hours driving distance or a 90-minute flight of your headquarters. Business Continuity Planning U.S. Risk Map COBALT DATA CENTER Earthquake Flood Tornado Ice Storm Hurricane Nuclear Power Plant DATA CENTERS 2013 Cobalt Data Centers Figure 1: National Hazards Map. Cobalt Data Centers Doc No. 2015-0115-001 2
Location, Reliability and Service: Choosing the Right Colocation Provider Are you an East Coast company trying to establish a West Coast disaster recovery footprint? If so, you should select a West Coast data center in or near a large city, with an airport that has direct flights to and from your home city, and nearby hotels where your employees can stay when they fly out to work on your servers. Are you looking to control your IT and colocation costs? If so, you should look for a colocation market that offers high availability of infrastructure and IT talent, but with lower costs of labor and business. Are you looking to keep your IT infrastructure safe from disasters? If so, you should look for a data center located in a region that is outside earthquake zones and flood plains, and in a region not affected by hurricanes or tornadoes. Also, look for a data center that is built far away from industrial facilities (i.e. chemical or nuclear plants, which may be vulnerable to disasters) and transportation hubs such as airports, railroads and highways. Space, Power, and Cooling You should talk with your IT people to determine space, power and cooling requirements for your IT infrastructure. These factors include: IT Setup How will colocating your servers in a data center affect your IT setup? How will your colocated servers integrate with your current IT environment? Which systems and applications will you host at the data center, and which will you continue to host locally at your business locations? Current Requirements How many square feet of space does your current IT footprint occupy? How much electricity is needed to keep all your servers running? How do your customers, employees, partners, etc. connect to your applications? Projected Requirements How much do you project your IT footprint to grow over the next 5 years? How much additional space and power will you need to support it as it grows during that time? Best- & Worst-Case IT Scenarios What s the best-case IT scenario for your business over the next 3-5 years (i.e. your online business triples, and you need to triple the size of your IT footprint)? What s the worst-case IT scenario for your business (i.e. your business shrinks, requiring you to cut servers to save money)? How would either scenario affect your colocation needs? Security and Certifications What kinds of physical security features do you need to keep your IT infrastructure safe from outsiders? Do you require certifications for your IT footprint, such as HIPAA, SSAE16, or Sarbanes-Oxley? 3 Cobalt Data Centers Doc No. 2015-0115-001
Connectivity How dependent is your business on the Internet? What are your high-speed WAN connectivity requirements? How much bandwidth does your IT footprint need today, and how much will it need in 5 years? Do you need access to any specific carriers? What are your LAN requirements in terms of both speed and flexibility? Will Gigabit Ethernet be sufficient, or will you need 10Gbps or higher? Also, will you need burstable bandwidth? Are there occasional weeks or seasons where you need short-term, temporary bandwidth to handle increased Internet traffic? Anticipating your bandwidth needs is critical for successful colocation. Monitoring, Remote Hands, and Migration Assistance If you re planning to host mission-critical systems, data center monitoring is a must-have. At the very least, you should look for a provider who offers continuous monitoring of server or rack conditions, uptime, service status, logs, power and cooling. Depending on your business needs, you may also require advanced systems and performance monitoring as well as troubleshooting services. Will your company s IT technicians or service providers be on-site at the data center, tending to your IT infrastructure? Or would you prefer a colocation provider who offers Remote Hands services, i.e. an on-site technical staff that can perform routine services (i.e. rebooting servers) and ongoing maintenance to your IT footprint? Also, will you need migration assistance to set up your footprint in the data center? Best Practice #3 Understand the Colocation Spectrum Colocation providers vary greatly in terms of the level and breadth of services offered. At one end of the spectrum are big-box providers who serve a large number of customers. These providers cater to organizations with the most massive colocation requirements, but don t always offer the individualized services that other customers require. They may take longer to fulfill service requests for their second-tier customers, and not all customers will have immediate access to certified engineers when they need support. At the other end are high-touch, personalized providers, who offer higher levels of service, build familiarity with customers, and employ highly-trained data center staff. High-touch providers are generally more consultative, and offer proactive support to alert customers of potential issues. For organizations with unique requirements, but who aren t on the scale of massive media companies, this type of provider is often a good choice. Cobalt Data Centers Doc No. 2015-0115-001 4
Location, Reliability and Service: Choosing the Right Colocation Provider The bottom line is, you should understand your IT requirements and the services you need, and determine which type of provider will best meet those requirements and help you achieve your business goals. Best Practice #4 Research Colocation Providers You can often find plenty of information about colocation companies on their web sites, but don t hesitate to contact the provider by phone or email to request specific data. Information About the Company Colocation providers vary greatly in the working environment they provide for their customers, including the presence or absence of hot rows. You should select a well-established colocation provider that is in a state of growth. The provider should be expanding their current facilities and/or building or buying new data centers. If the provider is just sitting on the one or two data centers they have, or if they lump in or add on colocation with their other high-tech services, it usually means they consider data centers to be real estate or just another offering, and are not serious about providing the best colocation service to their customers. You should pick a financially-sound colocation provider. If it is a public company, you can view their latest financial statements in their annual report filed with the SEC. With a private company, you may have to request their financials and have them audited by a third-party examiner. You should also make sure the company has plenty of insurance to cover losses in the event of a major catastrophe. Information About the Data Center Facilities A provider s web site will normally have technical specifications for each of their data center facilities, either as web content or in downloadable data sheets or brochures. For each facility, look at the following specs: Available Space How much space is available at the data center where you want to house your servers? Will there be room on the data center floor to grow your IT footprint as your business grows over the next 5-10 years? Will you have to move to a new section of the facility? And if so, how soon? Be sure to understand these logistics in any facility you consider. Power and Cooling Capacity Power-intensive IT infrastructures can draw more than 200 watts per square foot, and even up to 600. Not every data center is equipped to handle these requirements, so make sure each facility you consider has the power density to support your IT footprint. 5 Cobalt Data Centers Doc No. 2015-0115-001
Understand the power redundancy and ease of adding more power to your racks. Also, make sure the facility has an appropriate cooling design. Without the right cooling systems, high-density neighbors can bleed heat into surrounding areas, impacting the reliability and reducing the lifespan of your servers. Look for a facility that maintains an ideal 72 F temperature, especially in server environments. More modern facilities use chimneyed cabinets, eliminating the need for separated hot and cold aisles. This helps to ensure a more stable IT environment for your equipment and a better working environment for your staff. Power and Cooling Redundancy To ensure the reliability and availability of your servers, the facility should have a fully redundant power architecture. Internally, the facility should offer N+1 electrical distribution systems and A+B power-to-rack redundancy. It should have an Uninterruptible Power Supply (UPS) that provides at least 15 minutes of backup power, rather than just seconds. This gives the facility a viable backup window to perform recovery steps in the rare case of a power failure. The facility should also have cooling redundancy. It should have multiple CRAC units and/or additional cooling options, so that if one cooler goes down, the facility will continue to receive proper cooling. N+1 Redundancy All power and cooling components (N) in a data center have at least one (+1) independent backup component. If a component fails, the backup component will automatically take over to provide continuous power or cooling. A+B Redundancy A form of redundancy in which all server racks have two separate feeds from two different power supplies within the facility. If one power supply goes down, the racks will automatically switch over to the other power supply. Network Connectivity and Redundancy Make sure the data center has a diverse selection of IP and telecom providers on-net at the datacenter. The facility should be connected to a strong, redundant IP network backbone with automatic failover, so if one carrier is lost, it can switch your WAN traffic to another carrier. Cobalt Data Centers Doc No. 2015-0115-001 6
Location, Reliability and Service: Choosing the Right Colocation Provider The network should support Ethernet and fiber channel applications and should offer a range of connectivity speeds up to 10Gbps. Also, the provider should offer short-term burstable bandwidth, in case you need to handle sudden increases in network traffic. Energy Efficiency Air-Side Economizer An energy-saving cooling unit that cools a data center by pulling outside air directly into the facility. If you have green goals, look for an energy efficient data center. For example, a provider may use environmentally friendly methods like air-side economization to cool their facilities, or they may perform micro-monitoring of cabinet temperatures to ensure efficient power and cooling use. You should also look for data centers that are EPA Energy Star certified with a power usage effectiveness (PUE) of less than 1.6. Power Usage Effectiveness (PUE) The ratio of the total amount of power used by a data center over the amount it uses to power IT equipment. The lower a data center s PUE, the more energy-efficient it is. Taking A Closer Look You should take your research beyond looking at the data center s web site and marketing materials. One good indication of the provider s effectiveness is how knowledgeable their staff is when you ask them questions. If the staff can readily answer your questions without having to get back to you on that, it means they know their business well and are serious about providing you with efficient data center services. You should also ask the provider for a list of referrals. Ask their current clients what they like about the provider s colocation services and what they think could be improved. Best Practice #5 Tour the Facility You should request a guided tour of each data center facility that you seriously consider. This can help you to identify many issues that you might overlook in examining the provider s marketing materials, and may also help you to further define your own IT requirements. As you tour the facility, pay close attention to the following: Physical Appearance and Internal Layout The data center should be located in a safe, accessible neighborhood, and its physical appearance should inspire confidence. Inside, the data center floor should have adequate lighting and the temperature should be constant and well controlled. It should be easy to move through, with nice, wide aisles between cages and cabinets. You don t want your technicians to work in a hot, crowded, and poorly lit facility, where it s hard for them to move around the data center floor and get things done. 7 Cobalt Data Centers Doc No. 2015-0115-001
Power and Cooling Infrastructure Verify the facility has redundant power units. Ask to review the one-line electrical design diagram and visually confirm that redundant generators, UPS units and CRACs are installed. Also, look at the type of hot-air containment used in the facility (i.e. chimneys or hot & cold aisles), and think about how well this setup will cool your infrastructure. Physical Structure Ask your tour guide to tell you about the data center s physical structure. It should be a reinforced building, seismically-retrofitted and built to withstand severe weather events for the area. The building should have fire suppression equipment such as Very Early Smoke Detection Apparatus (VESDA) and dry pipe sprinklers. Ask the guide to point these out to you. Security Features The data center should have layered security zones so that visitors must pass through multiple security levels before reaching the data center floor. Look closely at the facility s physical security features. These may include: A mantrap at the entrance to the data center Key card, PIN code, and/or biometric (fingerprint or retinal scan) access points Locked cage areas or cabinets Monitoring of the facility by closed circuit cameras During the tour, your guide will probably brief you on the facility s security protocols. They will explain check-in procedures, IDs required, logging of visitors at the data center entrance and procedures for escorting visitors on the data center floor. The security personnel should closely follow security protocols, but should not be aggressive, rude or confrontational. You don t want your employees to work in a data center environment that makes them feel uncomfortable or intimidated. Monitoring Rooms and Other Amenities You should check out the monitoring rooms at the facility. Ask the on-site staff to explain how they monitor conditions at the data center such as power and cooling, uptime, and performance of customer IT footprints and video surveillance feeds. Also, look at any extra amenities provided for clients. These may include meeting rooms, customer office suites, kitchen areas and hoteling offices. If your technicians must be onsite at the data center for multiple days at a time, you want them to be comfortable. Asking More Questions While you re on the tour, you should ask questions about the following: Disaster prevention and recovery plans Are there procedures in place to handle incidents at the data center, such as a power outage or natural Cobalt Data Centers Doc No. 2015-0115-001 8
Location, Reliability and Service: Choosing the Right Colocation Provider disaster? Are there procedures in place to prevent fires and other man-made disasters from happening? Security procedures Ask questions about any security matter that is not covered in the tour. For example, what are the procedures for requesting security badges for your employees to access the data center, or for authorizing deliveries to your IT cage or cabinet? What kind of training do on-site security personnel receive? Does the provider do background checks in hiring security and maintenance personnel? Monitoring and reporting Ask about staff procedures for logging incidents such as performance measures of customer IT systems, power and cooling incidents, and security incidents. Also, ask about procedures for keeping customers informed of any incidents at the data center. Ongoing maintenance What kinds of ongoing maintenance and operational procedures do the staff perform in order to keep the data center working and operational? Best Practice #6 Look at SLAs, Contracts, and Pricing Options After touring the data center, you should talk with the provider about what they offer in terms of guarantees, contracts and pricing: Service Level Agreements (SLAs) The provider should offer a Service Level Agreement that provides at least three nines (i.e. 99.9%) guaranteed uptime of power, cooling and connectivity. According to data center standards, 99.9% guaranteed uptime means that the data center systems will have less than 95 minutes of downtime throughout the entire year. Flexible Contracts You should ask the provider how flexible their contracts are in terms of making changes to your IT infrastructure. Some providers will lock you in at a fixed level of space, power, cooling, and connectivity, and require you to renegotiate your contract if you want to make even small changes to your IT footprint. A colocation contract should be flexible enough to allow you to make changes without having to jump through hoops and do mounds of paperwork. Ask the provider how easy it will be to change your IT configuration once you move in. (Also, when you check with the provider s clients for referrals, ask them how easy or hard it is to work with the colocation provider in these types of situations.) Remote Hands and Rapid Provisioning If the provider offers Remote Hands services, ask them what their service terms are. For example, a colocation provider should offer 24x7x365 support. They should guarantee a response to your service requests within 24 hours, and should provide rapid provisioning of additional power, cooling, and cross-connects within 2-3 days. 9 Cobalt Data Centers Doc No. 2015-0115-001
The physical appearance of the data center should inspire confidence. Pricing Options Make sure you understand how the provider s pricing system works. You should look for usage-based pricing, in which you pay only for the amount of space, power and connectivity that you use. Also, make sure the provider offers detailed statements with clear visibility into your spending and billing for services. Remember the primary value of colocation services is the cost savings you get by outsourcing the management of your IT environment to data center experts. It will cost you much less to entrust the power, cooling, connectivity and maintenance of your IT footprint to a colocation provider than to build your own data center and manage it yourself. Therefore, when negotiating colocation prices, assess your budget, but don t accept hidden tradeoffs in service. Paying a bit more for higher-quality colocation services will pay multiple dividends for your company in the long run. Many colocation customers find that increased efficiency and reliability of their IT infrastructure results in a substantial reduction in spending over time. Best Practice #7 Build a Long-Term Relationship With Your Colocation Provider You should strive to build solid ties and a strong, ongoing relationship with your colocation provider. Just as your IT needs will change over time, your IT footprint will need to be developed, reconfigured and updated to adjust to those needs, and your provider will have a hand in that. This requires open communication between both parties. Cobalt Data Centers Doc No. 2015-0115-001 10
Location, Reliability and Service: Choosing the Right Colocation Provider Let your provider know what your business goals are, and how you expect your IT infrastructure to support those goals. At the same time, your provider should keep you informed of your options for improved colocation service, let you know when space is available to be reserved and notify you as to how any changes at the data center will affect the ongoing management of your IT footprint. They should also keep you informed of any incidents (i.e. local power outages) at the data center and how they were handled. Choosing a colocation provider is mission critical. That s why it s essential to know your business and IT goals, and to choose a provider who will work with you to meet those goals. Making a thorough, informed choice will pay dividends far into the future. About Cobalt Data Centers Cobalt Data Centers is a data center development and operating company based in Las Vegas. Cobalt Data Centers specializes in secure, high-density and network-rich colocation delivered with exceptional customer service. Cobalt Cheyenne is the company s flagship data center and the most practical, enterprise-grade facility in Las Vegas, a city and region known for robust connectivity and low instance of natural hazards. For more information, visit www.cobaltdatacenters.com. 11 Cobalt Data Centers Doc No. 2015-0115-001
Cobalt Data Centers Phone: 702-522-3282 Email: info@cobaltnap.com 7710 W. Cheyenne Ave Las Vegas, NV 89129 www.cobaltdatacenters.com