Data Center Outsourcing

Typically, data centers are homes to mission critical facilities for your business. A lot of companies have their data centers located in the same office as the business functions. As a best practice, some companies have a data center maintained at a different location for disaster management purposes. The rental and the server costs make it very expensive for companies in the USA to maintain a data center in the USA. This has led many companies in the USA to outsource their data center requirements overseas.

Outsourcing your data center requirements to a company overseas is a very challenging task with companies having to do due diligence on lot of metrics:

  • What infrastructure does the 3rd party service provider have?
    In all probabilities, you would not want to outsource data center requirements to a company which is situated in a 'non-industrial' or rural zone which does not have good bandwidth or road connectivity. The 3rd party service providers needs to have a spacious location with air cooling capacity to ensure that the servers do not get steamed up.

  • What are the risk management practices of the 3rd party service provider?
    Activities in a data center are extremely critical but risky. With millions of bytes being stored in the servers of the data center, a natural accident in the server location can cause irreparable damage to the client company's cause. The important fact is for the 3rd party service provider to identify the risks associated and ensure that there is a plan to counter or manage the risks.

  • How many resources would man the data center?
    Presence of highly technical components like servers, Virtual Private Networks requires technical personnel to handle the needs of these equipments. These resources must also be well equipped to handle any issues and troubleshoot them.

The above mentioned are just some of the factors that a company should consider before it does Data Center Outsourcing. Case studies have proved that the foundation for a good data center outsourcing practice is to conduct a feasibility study of the facility of the overseas data center.

Data Center Outsourcing has allowed many companies in the USA to set up disaster management units overseas. This is done keeping in mind the political and geographical climate. If you had a business in New Orleans during the Katrina event, you would have understood the importance of having a data center overseas.

The key here is for your business to function continually even in times of disasters or disruptions and outsourcing technology can help.