Aug 21, 2012
Aug 21, 2012
Choosing your data centre service provider is an exciting and informative process, however, if you don’t know what you should be looking for, this can turn into an arduous and stressful process. Just like buying a car or a computer, you need to think of your requirements foremost, and crosscheck these with what the data centre provider offers.
With data centres (as with real estate), one of the most important things is location, location, location. Choose an easily accessible location which is serviced by a reliable support technical team. Furthermore, be sure to avoid unstable locations, both in terms of natural disasters but also in terms of war and conflict. As cheap and inviting certain locations may seem, your data is worth nothing if it’s in a country locked in civil war, for example. Ensuring that the chosen location is a well connected and stable country will help in reducing or preventing outages and minimizing downtime.
The physical security at a data center plays a huge role in the security of your data, as well as making sure you sleep at night. Consider the following when it comes to security in your quest for the perfect data center. Does the data center have security cameras, how many and where are they placed? How is the video data recorded and how long is it kept? Does everyone who goes into and out of the data center sign in and sign out? Is the data center staffed 24 hours a day? Who has access to logs and videos and what is the procedure to get them? Is the data center insured against loss due to theft or vandalism or must you carry your own?
You should also be wise enough to enquire about the power infrastructure and HVAC (heating, ventilating and air-conditioning) system the data centre has, and whether it is capable of keep all the equipment running in a cool environment at maximum load on the hotwww day. Additionally, asking about how the data centre provider monitors temperatures goes a long way to knowing their state of readiness. One must keep in mind that if the HVAC stops working the servers will auto-power off in a matter of minutes.
Just because a data center has all the lawww technology does not mean that they do business in a way you’d care to join, so also ensure to research the company and their high profile clients, and ensure that no major problems have ever been reported.
BMIT’s data centres in Malta are housed within two state-of-the-art facilities and each area within the centre is manned 24x7, protected by an intrusion alarm system, and is constantly monitored by a CCTV system. Malta is a stable, highly performing EU member and a hub of commercial services. It is thus that we find ourselves uniquely positioned to provide a diverse and dynamic range of colocation, managed and cloud services to many customers all around the world.