Building and running a data centre in-house has appeal: keep control of sensitive data, utilise in-house space and resources, and avoid last mile costs by locating applications and data in the building. However, the cost and complexity of self-build has been driven up by users’ expectations over the past few years. There are some unpleasant surprises that can affect CIOs’ budgets.
Deciding on whether to build or outsource a data centre is a tough call. Historically, the decision largely came down to the capex available for the build. Today, CIOs’ checklists include many additional opex factors that complicate this decision. Scalability, time to market, the right expertise, and the shortening lifecycle of IT equipment all come in to play, along with unknown future requirements to connect up more and more data stores and services.
Apart from the increasing cost of self-build, including physical construction cost and the safety and environment systems needed, the rising complexity of running a data centre can be a nightmare. A multitude of hidden costs creep out of the woodwork and drive CIOs mad when it comes time to work out what the final bill is.
Examples of sometimes unforeseen problems are:
Electricity bills
Unbudgeted energy costs can cause DC costs to skyrocket due to budget misallocation if the bill for the data centre in the company’s basement, which accounts for 90% of the power consumption, isn’t divided out from that of the bill for the rest of the office building. It is not unusual for a 20sqm server room to consume R30 000 of electricity per month. Apart from the power needed for the servers, smaller data centres, which have been built with less planning and investment in airflow management, waste a high proportion of energy on cooling.
Server budgeting
Over-investment in servers in anticipation of the business’ need for data centre capacity over the next five to ten years, or an unexpected downsizing of the business, can lead to a costly tie-up of capital.
True cost of outages
Unforeseen downtime for a company that relies on Internet connectivity for access to its data and inter-office connectivity to be able to trade, can lead to significant business losses. Add to this additional costs and downtime after an outage to get all the equipment up and running again. However, avoiding outages completely is expensive. Not only does infrastructure need to be resilient (two of everything) but staff and processes need to be in place and up to date.
Cost of ownership
Replacement and maintenance costs (e.g. UPS batteries), combined with the rate of technological advancement, means a data centre typically has a life span of about ten years after which major capital items require replacing, depending on their utilisation, promising a huge capital and management challenge.
Security
As the DC becomes more critical to the business, security risks become greater – and physical security is paramount. All those 24×7 security guards, CCTV cameras, recorders and motion detectors cost unexpectedly large amounts of money.
Barriers to expansion
Despite implemented technology efficiencies such as virtualisation, companies’ data centres are expanding at 10-20% a year. This is driven by the doubling of data traffic each year and the centralising of applications and data storage. When data centres are at capacity, the next phase of expansion may require separated sites, costly interconnections and added complexity. These complexities lead to additional management overhead, increased business risk and increased expense.
Connectivity Management
Managing the connectivity within a data centre is vital and is not to be underestimated. Large amounts of data interconnections, cable diversities and cable types, require strict cabling standards, management and planning. Unmanaged interconnections are a guarantee for disaster. A lost interconnection to a server may lead to a similar disaster as a loss of power. If left unchecked, interconnections within a facility begin to grow to such an extent, that they can throttle airflow and diversity, stunting any future growth or expansion.
Cooling
Correct cooling design is vital to achieve maximum efficiency and optimum power consumption. Selecting the correct cooling system, such as air or water, is vital, as this has a large impact on capital outlay, maintenance and flexibility. Airflow, cooling capacity and resilience require expert design and careful consideration. Failing to cool equipment correctly, leads to inefficiencies, overheating and potentially fire. Expert adjustments, daily monitoring and correction, as well as unit balancing, can lead to large savings on electricity consumption.
Colocation, the practice of placing the data centre within outsourced premises, and potentially even using a provider to manage server systems, presents an attractive alternative – paying someone else a fixed monthly fee to make these infrastructure challenges their problem.
In the past, carriers and ISPs largely dominated the colocation industry, offering these services as a means to a different end (to sell data connections). Flash forward ten years and the outsourced data centre industry is now a mature sector, served by companies that specialise exclusively in providing reliable and efficient data center space with comprehensive connectivity options. Neutral data centres, as opposed to operator-owned data centres, focus solely on provision of data centre space and therefore offer companies freedom of choice in carrier and service provider, enabling them to make the most effective use of their budgets and availability of necessary service .
Bank of America Merryl Lynch, referencing Gartner research (Nov 2008), reports that demand for colocation is growing at 17% per year across key European markets. Already, 20% of corporate data centre space is outsourced, expected to rise to 30% in the next five years. Over 60% of outsourced space is in neutral colocation facilities, with the remaining (and shrinking) 40% in data centres owned by carriers, Internet Service Providers, or managed services companies. This reflects corporates’ need for flexibility and choice in competitive telecommunications markets.
In South Africa, industry pundits see the costs of local, national and international bandwidth falling by as much as 80% in the next two to three years. This will bring companies better costs and services as greater numbers of competitive networks are deployed.
The next time you look for a colocation partner to take over your capex and opex nightmares, don’t get locked-in to legacy IT decisions. Choice is important. Consider vendor neutral. Consider freedom.
