When choosing a colocation data center for your Houston organization, you must consider these important factors to ensure that it can provide the data center services you require: redundancy, safety and security, monitoring, support, and network services.
Redundant Systems
One of the big advantages of working with a data center provider or colocation data center is that you can leverage the cost of redundant systems rather than having to pay for them yourself. Data centers amortize costs across multiple clients, meaning that you can get full redundancy at a fraction of the cost.
When choosing among Houston data center locations, their redundancies should include the following:
- Power redundancy. Any data center should have backup uninterruptible power supply systems, along with plans for long-term outages. Look for data centers that connect the entire facility to standby generators, with switches for a seamless transfer. Power feeds should include continuous monitoring and be fault-tolerant.
Power redundancy also includes diverse power sources at the cage or rack level. This includes A/B power with automated failover so that you can continue operations even if one power source fails.
Ask about concurrent maintainability. Data center operators should be able to perform maintenance on equipment without disrupting power delivery.
- Cooling redundancy. Computer components emit a lot of heat. If the data center doesn’t properly mitigate this heat, it can cause significant damage. Make sure that the Houston data center you choose has redundancy for cooling, such as standby chillers or alternate cooling sources.
- Network infrastructure redundancy. In case of system or internet outages, you want a redundant core and network infrastructure. Data centers should be carrier-neutral, allowing you to choose among multiple fiber vendors and multiple cloud providers. With these connections and availability, they should be able to reroute traffic in case of disruption.
Safety and Security
When storing your data or equipment off-site, you need to ensure that it is secured properly. Look for data centers that prioritize secure site access with biometrics; offer private access cages; and take additional safeguards to protect your valuable assets, such as dry-pipe zoned fire-suppression sprinkler systems and raised flooring.
The best data center providers will also fortify their structures to withstand the impact of severe weather events.
Monitoring and Support
The best disaster recovery plan is one that prevents downtime before it occurs. Look for a Houston data center or colocation data center that provides 24/7 year-round monitoring, with ideally a network operations center available to monitor and detect potential disruptions proactively.
In case of a problem, you want to be assured that there is help available to get you back to normal operations as quickly as possible. When considering data centers, look closely at service-level agreements (SLAs) for what is offered. At a minimum, your SLA should provide 100% uptime on power.
You should ensure that your data center can meet your threshold for recovery time objectives (RTOs) and recovery point objectives (RPOs). An RTO is the amount of downtime you can deal with during a failure. An RPO is the amount of acceptable time between a failure and backups.
Network Services
You want to make sure that the data center offers the network services you need. For example, is the facility carrier-neutral, and if so, what carriers are available? You should be able to work with your preferred fiber network provider and have the option to switch or add additional internet connectivity for redundancy.
Also, explore whether there is interconnectivity between your facilities and different locations. For example, is there connectivity to other third-party centers?
Get Your Complimentary Data Center RFP
To help you prepare your request for proposal (RFP) and evaluate data center providers, the team at LOGIX Fiber Networks has put together a complimentary data center RFP template that you can use to compare data center providers. It includes best practices from industry experts, data center providers, and IT leaders to analyze data centers consistently and fairly so that you can find the best solution for your business.
LOGIX Data Centers
With data center locations in Austin, Houston, Dallas and Fort Worth, LOGIX can handle all of your data center needs with high availability and maximum security, redundancy and business continuity. Security, power and cooling meet the most stringent requirements, including a 100% uptime SLA on power.
With LOGIX, you get 24/7 year-round access to your assets in a secure and cost-effective data center, which can scale as your needs change. Connect directly to LOGIX or third-party carriers for redundant connectivity. Multiple disaster recovery options between select data center locations are available for geographical diversity.
Where can you find the best data center provider in Houston? Call LOGIX today at 281-688-6283.