BYTEGRIDR. 6 Considerations for Selecting the Right Colocation Provider. Copyright ByteGrid All Rights Reserved.

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1 6 Considerations for Selecting the ight Colocation Provider

2 6 CONSIDEATIONS The benefits of using a collocated data center have been well documented, such as lowering overall operational cost, lowering IT head count, and reliable and stable performance for your systems to name just a few. This e-book provides you with some of the key considerations for selecting the right data center partner, whether you are considering a new provider or looking for the first time. These include: 1. Financial and Business Strength 2. Security 3. Compliance 4. Interconnection and Hybrid Solutions 5. HVAC Systems 6. Support Services COLOCATION 1. FINANCIAL & BUSINESS STENGTH Imagine taking the time to select a provider, as well as making the investment in collocating your IT systems and then a year or two later, the provider goes belly up! This would be incredibly irritating, costly and most important disruptive to your business operations. To avoid this possibility and there are countless examples of this happening do your due diligence. Consider asking how long they have been in business and if they have financial backing for at least the next five years. It is also a good idea to ask for a few references of current clients and consider asking for at least one that has been a customer for more than two years. When questioning references, you could ask their opinion regarding the provider s financial stability. It s also worth asking about customer support and responsiveness to any issues experienced. You can also find out a lot of good information about a company from its website read a selection of recent press releases and take a look at the leadership or management page. Press release will reveal recent wins, company expansions, etc. that can provide important insights into the company s history and its ability to be successful. No available information could be an indicator to probe a little deeper. The leadership team provides valuable insights into the experience level for managing operations of the data center facilities what kind of talent do they have leading the company? Do they have at least a few key member s that are tenured data center professionals? Accomplished leaders with many years of experience is an excellent indicator of a successful organization. Lastly, does the company own and operate their facilities or lease space, and have they recently made any acquisitions or expansions in space or technologies? Company owned facilities is a great sign that the provider you

3 6 CONSIDEATIONS are considering has significant control over the data center and the ability to build out independently. One that does not control the facility may have limitations that could potentially impact your business operations. 2. SECUITY It is no secret that data breaches and hacking incidents are on the rise. Anyone who reads the news can t possibly miss this. Such examples range from singer Adele having her private pregnancy photos stolen; to Kendall Jenner s stolen St. Bart s holiday pics; to the much more serious 2015 Anthem Health data breach where 80 million sensitive patients records were stolen. While the colocation provider can t prevent someone virtually hacking your systems, the physical security of the facility should be thoroughly analyzed so that no unauthorized personnel can access your collocated equipment. At a minimum your provider should have a documented security policy. If they can also prove that both physical and access controls have been third party audited then you can be assured this has been independently vetted. Security feature to review are outlined in the table below: Security Features Biometric screening Visitor log Card screening multifactor Closed circuit TV interior and exterior screening Managed shipping and receiving capabilities Key lock cabinets/cages/suits 24/7/365 security guards 24/7/365 customer access Access control policy and log management (customer provided) Security fence 3. COMPLIANCE Many industries these days are overseen by some type of regulatory body and if this is the case for your business you are going to want to ensure that your provider can handle these requirements for your IT systems. Some key examples include HIPAA-HITECH, PCI, FDA (Part 11), etc. It is your responsibility to ensure that the data center can meet these requirements think about asking to audit them. efusal to participate in an audit should be a big red flag. Look also for an organization that has documented policies and procedure in place that address more than just security controls. A provider that fully understands compliance will have taken it far beyond security controls. True data center compliance needs to be built into the culture of the provider. A dedicated team addressing compliance standards

4 6 CONSIDEATIONS ensures they are practicing this behind the scenes and not just on paper. Look for team members to have the following designations: A final thought on compliance - ensure that you are looking at compliance standards that are applicable to your regulatory stack SSAE16 SOC1, SOC2(financial) EHNAC (for HIPAA-HITECH), FedAMP(Government), ISO27001/2 (security management standards). One standard does not apply to all, for example SSAE16 has nothing to do with FDA Part 11 or HIPAA. You ll want to make sure that you can review independent audit reports and view internal policies and procedures. Organizations that show dedication to meeting or hopefully exceeding regulatory requirements show that they have well trained and dedicated professionals behind the scenes and your organization will benefit from the added security layer. SIDE NOTE: Even if your organization does not have compliance mandates you ultimately benefit from a provider that is set up that way. 4. INTECONNECTIONS AND HYBID SOLUTIONS Without a doubt one of the advantages of collocating your equipment to a data center versus keeping it in house is the ability to interconnect in a shared environment. You should ask who the network carriers are within the data center you are choosing and are they carrier neutral. If your preferred carrier is not on their list, will they help you gain access to that carrier? edundancy is really key offering many network carriers means in the event that one provider fails all traffic can be diverted to another carrier. Preferred providers will have this correctly configured and will ensure your systems uptime is optimal. Providers should be able to give you spec sheets on all of their collocated facilities so you can evaluate offerings to meet your expectations. Some companies need the flexibility to use cloud infrastructure in conjunction with collocated systems. This can be achieved if the provider has managed offerings in addition to purely power, space and HVAC. This may not necessarily be a consideration for your organization in initial selection of a provider but it may be an important point to consider for your own future IT expansions or utilizing the newest technological advancements. Hybrid options also offer a cost effective disaster recovery solution to organizations collocating equipment. On that point of future expansion, any colocation provider you consider should be able to accommodate your growth needs. It s a good idea to also assess the company s space at the facility you are considering and definitely ask about future expansion plans for growth in space and technology. In the long run, this can save you time and the future need to relocate.

5 6 CONSIDEATIONS 5. HVAC SYSTEMS Efficient cooling systems is one of THE most important provider considerations. In order for your equipment to operate in the most optimal environment, you should check that the temperature and humidity ranges are within your equipment s requirements. Ask for a detailed description of how they manage cooling at their facilities each may be slightly different but a well-run facility will operate a sophisticated technique with redundancy. A brief description could include something like: Description: Chillers: Primary - Secondary Chilled Water Five (5) Ton York Centrifugal Unit with Variable Frequency Drives edundancy: N+2 Chilled Water Storage: Condensor Water Storage: Air Distribution System: Alternative Water Supply: 160,000 Gals 210,000 Gals for 72 hours at Full Load 30 Ton Nominal CAH Units with Under Floor Supply and Ceiling eturn; Constant Air Supply Control and Central Humidification System with Dew Point Control Three (3) On-Site Wells and External Water Hookup Other important questions to ask include how old the equipment is, what the maintenance schedule is, how it is monitored, maintained and inspected. Old equipment or sketchy maintenance records are a red flag. 6. SUPPOT LEVEL Many traditional data centers provide very little in terms of support even though they may talk about it like they do. These traditional style data centers offer ping, power and pipe and not much actual hands on help. You will want to consider the level of support you could potentially need for example what happens at 1AM in the morning and your system needs a reboot? Are you planning on heading out to the data center to fix it or do you prefer to leverage your provider s technical support? If you will utilize hands on help make sure the Network Operations Center is staffed 24/7/365 by onsite technical engineers. 24 This brings us to the next point of support if the data center can help you when a problem arises what is the help they provide? What is the cost associated by the hour, monthly packs of hours, etc.? Can they handle more than just reboots? Do they have parts in stock? If they do, what are they and can they actually solve more complex problems? Can your business afford a hardware failure that results in significant downtime? Parts can usually be ordered and received quickly and if the data center provider has the skilled staff on hand to fix it, this can reduce the burden on you. Consider asking the provider if they have a ticket system to handle issues or requests. Do they have an escalation system in place and what staff is available both on site and on call after regular business hours? When calling into

6 6 CONSIDEATIONS the data center, where are you calling in to is it within the United States and are you taking with a real person versus an automated system? Also, what is the experience level of the NOC technicians? A data center who provides NOC services should have technicians that are experienced, easily contactable via phone or 24/7/365. Ask questions about the certifications they hold you want to make sure there is someone available with the experience to handle your infrastructure. FINAL THOUGHTS The most important selection criteria will vary from organization to organization and your individual needs may not be entirely covered in the 6 considerations we have discussed in this e-book. This information gives you some great guidance to use as a basis for criteria that is important to you. ByteGrid is dedicated to providing the most secure, compliant data hosting solutions in the industry. Serving some of the most demanding requirements of enterprise, government, Life Sciences, Heath IT and Financial institutions, ByteGrid s focus is delivering technology solutions and services to ensure expectations are always met. ByteGrid s robust, scalable and highly secure offerings in colocation, managed hosting, hybrid cloud, and compliance services are delivered from an interconnected national platform of validated Tier 3/4 data centers. Overall, ByteGrid delivers services from five data centers in five geographically dispersed markets encompassing more than 700,000 square feet of premier data center space. In addition to supporting a wide variety of physical and logical security standards such as PCI, HIPAA via EHNAC, FISMA, FEPA, FedAMP, ISO 9001 and ISO 27001, ByteGrid participates in national standards organizations such as the National Public Health Data Standards, ISACA, ASQ, ISPE, AFCEA and the Healthcare Information and Management Systems Society (HIMSS). FINANCIAL HEALTH IT LIFE SCIENCES GOVENMENT

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