North East Data Centre Experts

Finding the right data centre partner is critical to your success, and as North East data centre experts we are often asked for our advice on how to choose the right data centre partner for your business.

Our decision to invest in creating our own £4m high specification, Tier 3 North East data centre back in 2014 was based on predicting the growth in cloud services and the market shift towards IT delivered as a service.

Here are some of our tips for making the right choice of data centre partner:

Location: think about how and where you collect, process and store your data. If you want to stay in control, look for a UK owned and managed data centre that can offer end to end management and control, and which is near your users and your staff, with good transport links.

Check out the client list: You can tell an organisation by the company it keeps. Our reputation as expert data guardians has seen us attract clients across sectors including the emergency services, legal, manufacturing, financial services and shipping. All sectors that process huge amounts of data, work within tight regulatory frameworks and rely heavily on their IT partner to keep their business running smoothly, and its data safe.

Data centre specification: find out how big the data halls are. Does the choice run from a single server within a rack, through to a large scale deployment? If you work in the justice or financial services sector, you may want the option to have 360 degree caged racks so the data hall layout and facilities need to accommodate that.

Does it have carrier neutral communications with multiple connectivity options? Ideally it should connect to all major peering exchanges, and hyperscale cloud provider on-ramp platforms to give you a wide range of carrier choice.

Security and compliance: you should be able to expect multi-layered security protecting the building and the facilities, from perimeter security and main areas to data hall controls and individual racks. Staff and third party access should conform to the principle of least privilege, and the data centre should include the latest measures in biometric verification locks and CCTV surveillance.

Check out whether the company is a member of the appropriate bodies such as RIPE, LINX and LONAP, and is audited to CAS(T) standards. ISO27001 and ISO9001-certification should be a given.

Power and cooling: data centres are power-hungry, and with the current situation around soaring energy prices and even interruptions to power, cost-effective energy and resilience is paramount. Check whether the business has an on-premise heat and power plant to generate electricity. Ideally this should be supported by direct connections to the National Grid with an on-premise substation, and a backup generator.

Look for racks that are powered up to 8KW each, with the option of higher density solutions if needed. An ideal scenario would see racks protected with 32amp feeds and a dedicated UPS facility with battery racks and N+1 safeguard.

Energy efficiency is an important element in controlling costs. The industry average PUE rating is 1.5, but a well-managed data centre should be able to deliver a PUE of 1.2 or less, indicating its ability to reduce costs as well as environmental impact.

Business continuity: ask the provider if they can deliver guaranteed uptime and service availability through a solution that utilises a multiple data centre model, should an emergency, disaster or threat strike the data centre.

Support: whatever your requirements, you need a flexible support package. Look for a provider with an expert team and a 24/7 onsite network operations centre proactively monitoring and managing network performance. It goes without saying that a tailored support and managed service should be available, including smart hands.

If you’re searching for an expert data centre partner who can offer you a highly secure, resilience environment then look no further, we have what you need. If you’d like to visit and see what a leading edge data centre looks like, get in touch today and book your tour.