News & Events
Co-Location — Is It Right For You And Your Business?
The AOS Staying Power Advantage
Allan M. LaPrino, Director, AOS
January 3, 2011
If you do not currently have the space, cannot afford or do not have access to the power requirements or just wish to hand off or minimize an operating expense, co-locating your IT footprint, no matter the size, is an option to consider as we all look to shrink expenses.
AOS has partnered with RECOL to occupy either cages and/or partial/full rack space at their world-class Data Center in Branford, CT. This relationship enables AOS to provide our clients either partial or full rack space rather than full rack or full cage space which is typically required as an industry practice. Most importantly to our clients, the cost is extremely attractive as related to existing onsite data center costs. Along with the ability to utilize virtual architecture to shrink both your server footprint and costs, co-locating hardware and related expenses is becoming more and more attractive to the small and mid-sized business market.
Benefits
Redundancy
Within a premier collocation facility, redundancy ensures that should systems crash the customer’s network equipment will never “blink” as redundant systems are in place to automatically replace those that went down. This includes air conditioning systems, UPS, power generators, utility power, network routers, redundant Internet backbones with additional capacity, along with both AOS and redundant onsite network engineering staff. Not every co-location provider and collocation facility includes all of these important services, but those premier locations do. This is where the AOS STAYING POWER ADVANTAGE once again assists our customer base to save valuable $$$ and time.
The RECOL co-location facilities utilize redundant Internet networks and backbones coming into their facility. Normally, when a company contracts for a network for their office they usually receive only the Internet bandwidth capacity that they feel they can afford such as a single T1 or a T3 line without redundancy. Premium co-location facilities provide a much more robust and redundant always reliable Internet network.
Temperature Control
Most small and mid-sized office network environments do not or cannot provide for temperature controlled systems that can manage a set amount of cooling for the network setting and are set to run during business hours. When you introduce a large amount of servers or network gear, the power used is converted to heat that must be cooled. Office temperature control systems are not designed to handle the additional cooling required for a large amount of server and network gear. In addition, were the temperature control system to fail, or need to be powered off for routine maintenance, the heat would rise. Over-heated network equipment is one of the industry’s most prevalent drivers requiring a Disaster Recovery program.
Power Generators and UPS
Most small and mid-sized businesses will contract with the primary utility-supplied power and may also use a small UPS to backup the servers or computers on their network. Rarely do these companies provide automatic emergency generators unless it is for a data center, hospital or other important office building. Office buildings that do provide for an emergency backup generator usually provide only the type of backup generator that has the ability to run for 2 to 4 hours and is rated for “backup”. In premier co-location facilities the generator is a Prime Source type of power generator and the UPS system manages the entire facility rather than only a small portion of that facility.
AOS STAYING POWER ADVANTAGE
Should you wish to discuss the options AOS provides our clients or schedule a tour of the RECOL data center, please reach out to your AOS Account Executive or feel free to contact me directly at our offices: 203-481-5349 or alaprino@aosinc.com.
