Considerations when moving your data centre

Moving your data centre from in-house to a colocation provider makes increasing economic sense. The economies of scale provided by a specialist environment, particularly with rising costs in energy and 24/7 support and security, can no longer be ignored. But despite the logic and clear advantages, the actual commitment can be daunting. Uprooting the IT infrastructure on which your business depends and transferring it to a different location is worrying, to say the least.

But it needn’t be. The solution is in detailed planning and strict project management, coupled with the experience to see it through. To help companies considering just such a move, but perhaps a bit worried about the unknown, we’ve compiled a checklist of what’s entailed.  (more…)

How to choose a colocation business partner

When you decide to colocate your data centre, the first thing you need to do is draw up a checklist of what you need from a provider. We have a white paper, The Data Centre Buyer’s Guide that will help you with this. It details all you must look for, including guaranteed power and connectivity, 24/7 manned security, complete environmental control including air-conditioning to keep things cool and fire suppression if it gets too hot, multiple sites for secure failover, track record and more.

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Data Centres. Do it yourself or colocate?

Sooner or later all companies will need a data centre; but when that realisation is made they are faced with one big question: should they keep it in-house, or should they colocate their data centre with a specialist data centre provider?

To help with this decision, we have produced a white paper: The Data Centre Buyer’s Guide: Time to come out of the closet? (more…)

How to choose the right network for your business

One of the most frequent problems we find with companies who develop and maintain their own computing infrastructures, or chose to colocate with the wrong provider, is their choice of  underlying network. Whether it is between distributed data centres, or from headquarters to regional office desktops or to remote workers and mobile devices, the transport technology chosen is vital. Getting this wrong can bottleneck your business or result in high and unnecessary expense for years to come. Quite simply, it doesn’t matter how powerful your servers, how state-of-the-art your gear, your business can only operate as efficiently as the underlying communication infrastructure. Choosing the right network is one of your most important considerations – and one of the least understood. (more…)