{"id":6303,"date":"2013-03-07T13:00:36","date_gmt":"2013-03-07T13:00:36","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.journeytothecloud.com\/?p=2696"},"modified":"2013-03-07T13:00:36","modified_gmt":"2013-03-07T13:00:36","slug":"colocation-55-living-for-your-it-equipment","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/icloud.pe\/blog\/colocation-55-living-for-your-it-equipment\/","title":{"rendered":"Colocation: 55+ living for your IT equipment"},"content":{"rendered":"

I recently sat on a planning call with an extremely smart and agreeable client. We had discussed a modest \u201cdata center\u201d worth of equipment to host the environment he\u2019s considering putting into production. I asked the simple enough question of \u201cwhere are you going to deploy this gear?\u201d I have to admit not being very surprised when he responded: \u201cWell, I\u2019ve cleaned out a corner of my office.\u201d Having spent some early days of my IT career working in a server closet, I knew that if the hum of the equipment fans didn\u2019t get to him quickly, the heat output would for sure. This is not an uncommon conversation. Clearly the capital expense of building out a \u201cdata center\u201d onsite was not an appealing topic. So, if building isn\u2019t an option, why not rent? <\/span><\/p>\n

In a similar vein, not too far back I watched several \u201csenior\u201d members of my family move into 55+ communities after years of resisting. Basically, they did a \u201ccapacity planner\u201d and realized the big house was no longer needed. They figured somebody else could worry about the landscaping, snow plowing and leaky roofs. The same driving forces should have many IT pros considering a move into a colocation facility.<\/p>\n

The opportunities to move into a hosted data center (colo facility) are plentiful today. You simply don\u2019t have as much gear any longer (assuming you\u2019re mostly virtualized). Your desire to \u201cdo it all\u201d yourself has waned (let someone else worry about keeping the lights on and network connected). The added bonus of providing redundant network paths, onsite security and almost infinite expansion are driving many \u201crental\u201d conversations today. Colos are purpose-built facilities which are ideal for core data center gear such as servers, storage (SANs), routers and core switches, to name a few.\u00a0 Almost all of them have dual power feeds, backup battery systems and generators.\u00a0HVAC (heating, ventilation, and air-conditioning) units keep appropriate environmental conditions for the operation of this critical equipment.<\/p>\n

Many businesses don\u2019t fully realize just how much power consumption is required to operate a data center<\/a>. The energy bills achieved for just the cooling component alone can leave many IT managers, well, frosted. Even still, the need to see the healthy status green blinking lights is like a digital comfort blanket. Speaking with many IT execs, we hear over and over \u201cThis was the best move we could have made.\u201d From our own experience<\/a>, we\u2019ve seen our internal IT team shift focus to strategic initiatives and end user support.<\/p>\n

While it is certainly not a one-size-fits-all endeavor, there is something for most organizations when it comes to colo. Smaller organizations with one rack of equipment have seen tremendous advantages as have clients approaching the \u201centerprise\u201d size with dozens of cabinets of gear. Redundancy, security<\/a>, cost control, predictable budgets and 7x24x365 support are all equally attractive reasons to move into a \u201ccolo.\u201d Call it a \u201ccolominium\u201d if you will. Colo could be the right step toward a more efficient and effective IT existence.<\/p>\n

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I recently sat on a planning call with an extremely smart and agreeable client. We had discussed a modest \u201cdata center\u201d worth of equipment to host the environment he\u2019s considering putting into production. I asked the simple enough question of \u201cwhere are you going to deploy this gear?\u201d I have to admit not being very…Read More »<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":42,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[104,1502,327,179],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6303","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-cloud-computing","category-colocation","category-data-center","category-featured"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/icloud.pe\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6303","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/icloud.pe\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/icloud.pe\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/icloud.pe\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/42"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/icloud.pe\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6303"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/icloud.pe\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6303\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/icloud.pe\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6303"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/icloud.pe\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6303"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/icloud.pe\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6303"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}