colocation – Two Ears One Mouth IT Consulting

Colocation’s Relevance Today for Business

January 30, 2019 by Jim Conwell, posted in Cloud and IT Consultants, Cloud Computing, colocation, data center, disaster recovery, healthcare IT regulation, IT Regulation

The past several years have shown a “cloud-first” strategy evolve for business with their IT infrastructure. The inclination for a total on-premises infrastructure has decreased as hybrid cloud solutions have expanded. While off-premises solutions are the up and coming choice for many businesses, on-premises continues to be utilized with most companies. As businesses look at their IT strategies for the future, they should explore options to the cloud and consider the reasons why cloud may or may not be the best fit for all their applications. Businesses have seen the value of taking their data off site for years without handing it over to a cloud provider. The primary alternative has been collocation (colo). Many have seen a renewed interest of colo with the growth of hybrid cloud, as the large public cloud providers have implemented changes to their products to promote hybrid cloud architectures. Here I will review these changes and discuss colocation’s relevance today for business.

Colo defined and best use cases

Colo allows organizations to continue to own and maintain control of their IT hardware while taking advantage of an off-premises solution that offers increased uptime and security. As a part of the colo agreement, the data center will offer space, power, and bandwidth to its clients in a secured and compliant area within their facility. Although data centers are some of the most secure places in the world, they still can offer their clients access to their IT resources 24 hours a day, 365 days a year. They accomplish this through multiple layers of security including security guards, video monitoring and biometrics. This ability for colo customers to access and touch their data provides a psychological advantage for many businesses.

Another advantage of colo is power which can be offered with options including multiple power utilities. Redundant power offers additional safeguards against an IT outage. This type of power configuration is not available in most business’s office buildings. Also, a data center can offer power at a reduced rate because of their purchasing power with the utility. With more power comes more cooling requirements. The data center also provides better cooling, again with spare resources to assure it’s always available. Finally, bandwidth is a commodity the data center buys in bulk and offers to its colo customers at savings.

Regulatory compliance is another important advantage driving users to a colo solution. Colo provides its customers instant access to an audited data center, such as one with SOC 2 compliance. Colo has long been believed to offer more security and compliance than on-premises or cloud.

Considerations before moving to colo

The primary items to consider before moving to colo in a data center relate to the space and power components of the solution. Colocation space is typically offered by the data center provider by the rack or by a private cage consisting of multiple racks. In either offering, a prospective buyer should consider the requirements for expansion of their infrastructure. In a cage, a customer is typically offered “reserved space” within that cage to be purchase and can then activate when required. When the customer doesn’t require the segregation of a cage, they will purchase racks that are adjacent to other business customers, which can make expansion more complex. Customer-focused data centers allows a business to reserve adjacent racks without activating the power and therefore are priced at a discounted rate. It is important to have contiguous space in a data center colo so consider additional space for growth with the initial purchase.

Regarding power make sure you research the amperage and voltage requirements for your infrastructure and its potential for growth. Data centers will have many diverse power offerings so consult with an expert like TEOM for the requirements of your IT equipment.

Today’s evolving advantages of colo

Most of today’s business IT infrastructures, on-premises or colocation, will utilize some type of cloud presence for required applications such a disaster recovery. The byproduct of this growing trend is hybrid cloud implementation. Like the term cloud, a hybrid cloud can have many definitions. For our purposes here, hybrid cloud will be defined as resources complementing your primary on-premises infrastructure with a cloud solution. The large public cloud providers, most often used by businesses, have expanded their presence beyond their own data centers to occupy a cage of colo in large multi-tenant datacenters. This enables the cloud providers to get physically closer to their customers, which creates an advantage for a business user in that data center needing to implement a hybrid cloud solution.

Previously, customers of the large public clouds have relied on either the internet for inexpensive connectivity or expensive dedicated telecom circuits to connect “directly” to their cloud provider. Direct connections have been prohibitively expensive for most businesses because of the high cost of telecom circuits that are required to reach the public cloud. Some have justified the high cost of direct connect due to increased security and the greatly reduced costs of data egress. Egress charges are the cost to move data from the public cloud to the business. Typical egress charges for public cloud providers can be as much is $.14 per gigabyte. When direct connections are established egress charges are greatly reduced to as low as $.02 per gigabyte as of the time this article was written. Because of this direct connect can save users thousands of dollars while greatly increasing security. When the public cloud provider is in the same data center as the colo customer a direct connection to take the form of a “cross connect” within the data center. This common data center service is a fraction of the cost of the telecom circuits mentioned previously. This enormous economic benefit can be multiplied if the business connects to multiple public clouds (multi-cloud).

A more recent trend has the large public cloud providers creating a hybrid cloud on the customer’s premises. Microsoft’s solution, called Azure Stack, was the first introduced, and now has a competitive product from AWS called Outpost. The products, to be covered in a future article, put the hardware and cloud infrastructure of these providers on the customer’s site. This creates additional validation that hybrid is here to stay.

Colo remains relevant today for many of the same reasons it has been chosen for years: availability, security, and compliance. As the large public cloud providers expand outside of their own data centers to get closer to their customers, new advantages for businesses have emerged. When a fiber cross connection in a common data center can be used to direct connect to a public cloud provider, enormous benefits are realized. Ironically, as the public cloud providers grow, colocation has found new life and will remain relevant for the foreseeable future.

If your business wants to stay competitive in this ever-changing environment

Contact us @ Jim Conwell (513) 227-4131 jim.conwell@twoearsonemouth.net

www.twoearsonemouth.net

we listen first…

A Buyer’s Guide to Cloud

November 10, 2018 by Jim Conwell, posted in Business Practices, Cloud and IT Consultants, Cloud Computing, colocation, data center, disaster recovery, IT Regulation, IT Security, Latency, migration, protecting cloud resources, Uncategorized

Most businesses have discovered the value that cloud computing can bring to their IT operations. They may have discovered how it helps to meet their regulatory compliance priorities by being in a SOC 2 audited data center. Others may see a cost advantage as they are approaching a server refresh when costly hardware needs to be replaced. They recognize an advantage of placing this hardware as an operational expense as opposed to the large capital expense they need to make every three years. No matter the business driver, the typical business person isn’t sure where to start to find the right cloud provider. In this fast paced and ever-changing technology environment these IT managers may wonder, is there a buyer’s guide to Cloud?

Where Exactly is the Cloud?…and Where is My Data?

Except for the cloud hyperscalers, (Amazon AWS, Microsoft Azure, and Google) cloud providers create their product in a multi-tenant data center. A multi-tenant data center is a purpose-built facility designed specifically for the needs of the business IT infrastructure and accommodates many businesses. These facilities are highly secured and most times unknown to the public. Many offer additional colocation services that allow their customers to enter the center to manage their own servers. This is a primary difference with the hyperscalers, as they offer no possibility of customers seeing the sites where their data resides. The hyperscale customer doesn’t know where there data is except for a region of the country or availability zone. The hyperscaler’s customer must base their buying decision on trusting the security practices of the large technology companies Google, Amazon, and Microsoft. These are some of the same organizations that are currently under scrutiny from governments around the world for data privacy concerns. The buying decisions for cloud and data center for cloud seekers should start at the multi-tenant data center. Therefore, the first consideration in a buyer’s guide for the cloud will start with the primary characteristics to evaluate in the data center and are listed below.

Location– Location is a multi-faceted consideration in a datacenter. First, the datacenter needs to be close to a highly available power grid and possibly alternate power companies. Similarly, the telecommunications bandwidth needs to be abundant, diverse and redundant. Finally, the proximity of the data center to its data users is crucial because speed matters. The closer the users are to the data, the less data latency, which means happier cloud users.
Security– As is in all forms of IT today, security is paramount. It is important to review the data center’s security practices. This will include physical as well as technical security.
People behind the data– The support staff at the datacenter creating and servicing your cloud instances can be the key to success. They should have the proper technical skills, responsiveness and be available around the clock.

Is My Cloud Infrastructure Portable?

The key technology that has enabled cloud computing is virtualization. Virtualization creates an additional layer above the operating system called a hypervisor that allows for sharing hardware resources. This allows multiple virtual servers (VMs) to be created on a single hardware server. Businesses have used virtualization for years, VMware and Microsoft HyperV being the most popular choices. If you are familiar with and have some secondary or backup infrastructure on the same hypervisor as your cloud provider, you can create a portable environment. A solution where VMs can be moved or replicated with relative ease avoids vendor lock-in. One primary criticism of the hyperscalers is that it can be easy to move data in but much more difficult to migrate the data out. This lack of portability is reinforced by the proprietary nature of their systems. One of the technologies that the hyperscalers are beginning to use to become more portable is containers. Containers are similar to VMs however they don’t utilize guest operating systems for the virtual servers. This has had a limited affect on portability because containers are a leading-edge technology and have not met widespread acceptance.

What Kind of Commitment Do I Make?

The multi-tenant data center offering a virtualized cloud solution will include an implementation fee and require a commitment term with the contract. Their customized solution will require pre-implementation engineering time, so they will be looking to recoup those costs. Both fees are typically negotiable and a good example where an advisor like Two Ears One Mouth can assist you through this process and save you money.

The hyperscaler will not require either charge because they don’t provide custom solutions and are difficult to leave so the term commitment is not required. The hyperscaler will offer a discount with a contract term as an incentive for a term commitment; these offerings are called reserved instances. With a reserved instance, they will discount your monthly recurring charge (MRC) for a two or three-year commitment.

Finding the best cloud provider for your business is a time-consuming and difficult process. When considering a hyperscaler the business user will receive no support or guidance. Working directly with a multi-tenant data center is more service-oriented but can misuse the cloud buyer’s time. The cloud consumer can work with a single data center representative that states “we are the best” and trust them. Alternatively, they can interview multiple data center provider representatives and create the ambiguous “apples to apples” spreadsheet of prospective vendors. However, neither is effective.

At Two Ears One Mouth IT consulting we will listen to your needs first and then guide you through the process. With our expertise and market knowledge you will be comforted to know we have come to the right decision for you company’s specific requirements. We save our customers time and money and provide our services at little or no cost to them!

If you would like assistance in selecting a cloud provider for your business contact us at:

Jim Conwell (513) 227-4131 jim.conwell@twoearsonemouth.net

www.twoearsonemouth.net

we listen first…

Will an Indirect Consultant Cost My Business More?

October 25, 2018 by Jim Conwell, posted in Business Practices, Cloud and IT Consultants, Cloud Computing, colocation, data center

Getting more while paying less

Recently, a prospective customer asked me, “Will an indirect consultant cost my business more than negotiating with the service provider directly?” It’s a fair question, one I can answer with minimal effort. Working on a cloud or telecommunications solution with a supplier agnostic advisor (indirect) doesn’t cost anything additional and often will reduce the total cost of a project.

The indirect model

Most cloud and telecommunications providers today will utilize both the direct and indirect sales consultant models. A direct sales consultant is an employee of the supplier who is given a sales quota and a limited variety of solutions to propose. An indirect sales consultant will represent a variety of suppliers and solutions. The consultant will also typically focus on a select group of suppliers and narrow the prospective vendors down for their client based on their specific needs. The indirect and supplier relationships have no quota or demands that create a false urgency or bias to the buyer. The primary goal for the indirect consultant is to save their client time and utilize their expertise to find the best supplier and solution for their customer. Since all suppliers currently embrace the indirect model the list of suppliers is unlimited. The consultant will focus on a few but is prepared to engage any supplier needed for a unique situation. The past decade has shown a clear trend for suppliers to move to the indirect model and many have engaged the indirect channel exclusively.

Why pay more?!

In What is the Difference between a Direct and Indirect Channel, I covered some of the advantages of the indirect partnership and why it enables long term sustainability. Many times, the indirect consultant will save the end-user the cost of a technology solution. Certainly, as some may surmise, suppliers that utilize the indirect model don’t add cost to the solution because it involves an indirect consultant. All suppliers budget for the cost of sales in their pricing, regardless of the channel it comes from. They understand that the opportunities from the indirect channel are unique from their direct sales funnel and don’t incur any additional cost to sales.

Due to their vast knowledge and experience, the indirect representative is very familiar with the sales process of cloud computing and telecommunications and know where the supplier may have flexibility. It may be in the term contract, the installation charges or the monthly recurring charges (MRC) for the service. The indirect consultant becomes a trusted guide through the discovery, sales, and implementation process. This has its greatest value in a cloud or data center acquisition. The discovery and decision process for this type of service may be completed once or twice in an IT leader’s tenure and many years can pass between engagements. As a result, they are unable to remain apprised of the current technology, sales trends, and processes. Conversely, the indirect consultant may lead his or her other clients through a similar process several times a month. They know how to get the best value and are rewarded by it. Cost is not the best reason to use indirect consultant, but it is never the downside of the indirect consulting process.

Today’s suppliers of telecom and cloud services have come to embrace the indirect sales channel because of its propensity to create a “win-win” for all parties involved. It provides a more customized and less expensive solution to the potential customer while introducing new opportunities and reducing the cost of sales for the supplier.

If you would like to understand more about getting more and paying less contact us at:

Jim Conwell (513) 227-4131 jim.conwell@twoearsonemouth.net

www.twoearsonemouth.net

we listen first…

Ohio Datacenter with AWS Direct Connect Now Open

March 9, 2018 by Jim Conwell, posted in Cloud and IT Consultants, colocation, data center, Edge Computing

Datacenter Trends

It’s beginning to feel more like the Silicon Valley in Central Ohio. There is now an Ohio Datacenter with AWS Direct Connect If you haven’t seen or heard about the new Cologix datacenter, take a minute to read on.

Cololgix datacenter has been in the Columbus area for many years and operates 27 network neutral datacenters in North America. Its newest facility, COL3, is the largest multi-tenant datacenter in Columbus and resides on the same 8-acre campus as their existing datacenters COL1 and COL2. It offers over 50 network service providers including the Ohio-IX Internet Exchange peering connection.

Most exciting of all is its 20+ cloud service providers, which includes a direct connection to the market leading Amazon Web Services (AWS). This is the first AWS direct connection in the region providing customers with low latency access to AWS US East Region 2. With direct connect AWS customers create a dedicated connection to the AWS infrastructure in their region. When AWS is in the same datacenter where your IT infrastructure resides, such as Cologix, all that is needed for connectivity is a small cross connect fee.

Here are some pertinent specifications of Cologix COL3:

Facility

- Owned & operated in a 200,000+ SQF purpose-built facilities on 8 acre campus
- Rated to Miami-Dade hurricane standards
- 4 Data Halls – Up to 20 Milliwatt (MW)
- 24” raised floor with anti-static tiles
- 150 lbs/SQF floor loading capacity with dedicated, sunken loading deck

Power:

2N Electrical, N+1 Mechanical Configurations
2N diverse feeds from discrete substations
Redundant parallel IEM power bus systems serve functionality and eliminate all single points of failure
2N generator configuration- Two (2) MW Caterpillar side A and Two (2) MW Caterpillar side B
On-site fuel capacity for 72 hours run time at full load
Redundant 48,000-gallon tanks onsite, priority refueling from diverse supplies & facility exemption from emergency power

Cooling:

Raised floor cold air plenum supply; return air plenum
770 tons per Data Hall cooling capacity
Liebert, pump refrigerant DSE
Concurrently maintainable, A &B systems

Network:

50+ unique networks in the Cologix-controlled Meet-Me-Room
Network neutral facility with 16+ fiber entrances
Managed BGP IP (IPv4 & IPv6); multi-carrier blend with quad-redundant routers & Cologix provided customer AS numbers & IP space
Most densely connected interconnect site in the region including dark fiber network access
Connected to the Columbus FiberNet system plus fiber feeds reaching all 88 Ohio counties
Metro area dark fiber available