July 8, 2021July 8, 2021 by Matt Seaton

What are the services that a colocation data centre offers?

Many businesses are choosing to host their servers and other critical equipment with colocation data centre providers rather than managing this in-house. Let’s look at some of the services offered by colocation providers and why you should consider making the switch.

Projections show the colocation data centre market growing by more than 13 per cent annually between 2021 and 2028. It’s an industry that’s expected to be worth more than $117 billion at that point.

What is a colocation data centre?

A colocation data centre is a facility that can host your servers and other critical IT infrastructure for you.

Rather than keeping this equipment on-site at your own premises, the colocation centre provides the physical space and resources to operate this on your behalf with much greater success. You still have full access to your equipment, but it’s housed inside the data centre and uses its network, cooling, and other related infrastructure.

It’s important to note that in a colocation arrangement, you still own the equipment. You’re not renting the hardware from the data centre, only the space and services needed for its operation.

Services offered by colocation data centres

Using a colocation centre (also known as “colo”) gives you the flexibility of managing your own equipment without having to pay for and maintain the infrastructure in-house. These providers offer several services.

1. Better infrastructure

A colocation data centre operator such as London-based Netwise need to maintain high-quality, reliable infrastructure to attract customers. They host equipment for many companies so their resources are typically much better than the average business would have in-house.

Power

Colocation providers offer redundant, high-capacity power feeds to ensure your servers stay online and accessible. This includes UPS protection options for short-term outages and diesel generators with 48-hour on-site fuel supplies.

Network connectivity

To provide the bandwidth required to run dozens or even hundreds of servers, a data centre offers high-speed internet connections with the option to choose from many different network providers. This ensures that there’s no distinguishable difference in latency between a colocated server and an on-site server.

The level of network connectivity in a data centre offers better performance than a local connection.

Facilities

Data centres can also provide better facilities than hosting your servers in-house. They use the latest cooling technologies, a high degree of physical security, and more modern rack mount systems than you may have available locally.

2. Uptime guarantees

If you’re hosting your server in-house, any downtime is your responsibility. Colocation providers offer service level agreements (SLA) that include uptime guarantees.

Netwise offers a 99.999% uptime guarantee, giving you the peace of mind that your servers will be available when you need them most.

3. Multiple geographic locations

Some colocation data centres, like Netwise, offer several geographic locations to choose from. This lets you host your server in a location of your choice, whether that’s one that physically close to your business or one that’s closer to your customers.

This lets you minimize your server’s latency by locating it closer to where the majority of its traffic comes from as well as have it nearby if your technicians are handling the maintenance.

4. Physical and network security

Most colocation providers provide a high level of physical security including guards, 24/7/365 surveillance systems, and biometric authorisation systems. This helps protect your servers from unauthorized in-person access.

They also provide better network security than many companies can maintain in-house. They stay on the leading edge of technological advances in network security, both in the tools they use and the training they provide their staff.

Maintaining the same degree of security in-house would require constant training for your IT staff as well as considerable costs for the latest equipment.

5. Cost savings

Your company could handle most of the services in this list in-house if you wanted. But the cost to do so would be much higher than the fees you’ll pay a colocation provider.

You would need to pay for faster network connections, new equipment, and other infrastructure costs. Some of those would be one-time costs while others would be ongoing.

You would also face higher payroll costs for training and maintaining round-the-clock support staff.

6. Service and support

When you host your servers in a data centre, you can choose to have your technical staff handle the maintenance or you can set up a support contract with the data centre provider. You may also want to consider a hybrid approach, with the data centre staff handling some tasks and your technicians handling others.

It may be more cost-effective for the provider’s staff to handle things like replacing a defective part or upgrading an internal component on your server. This avoids the need to send your technicians to the data centre to do the work.

7. Scalability

Colocation data centres have plenty of space for growth. If you want to add a new server or some other type of hardware to your network, they’ll most likely have the physical space and rack capacity to do so quickly.

If you’re hosting your server on-site, the amount of space you have available could limit your expansion options. In a case like that, you might face considerable capital costs to expand your server room or move to a larger facility.

Choosing the right UK-based colocation provider

If you’re looking for a UK-based colocation data centre, Netwise is here to help. We offer state-of-the-art colocation facilities in the centre of London that can connect you to users around the globe.

We offer a range of colocation packages ranging from 1U to 4U packages right up to full rack colocation. Get in touch with us today to see how we can provide you with reliable, high-performance hosting for your servers and other equipment.

July 7, 2021November 30, 2021 by Matt Seaton

What does a colocation data centre do?

Articles

Looking for a more efficient way to manage your IT operations?

Budgeting for the IT requirements of your business can be a handful at the best of times. Have you ever considered making use of colocation data centres? It may be the best alternative for your data storage and application delivery needs. Find out about colocation, what it is and what it does in this article.

Colocation definition and concept

What is colocation? A colocation facility or ‘colo’ is a third-party location that houses servers and data equipment. The idea of colocation first started when businesses began moving equipment out of their offices in the 90’s.

Back then, rented spaces are getting charged on per-rack settings. It soon evolved into wholesale data centres and now work at a hyper-scale level. Clients may turn to colocation facilities to rent space for their critical IT equipment.

However, rack space isn’t the only thing clients can get from a colocation facility. Clients of colocation facilities will also get resilient power, high-performance connectivity, world-class security, and state-of-the-art cooling, amongst other things.

What is a colocation data centre and what does it do?

Colocation data centres are buildings or warehouses that offer rental spaces for companies. They accommodates their networking equipment, servers, and storage systems.

These data carrier hotels not only provide their clients with the space needed to host their equipment. It also offers necessary services for the best data storage and application delivery, such as:

Power

A colocation data centre provides power for your systems all around the clock for seven days a week. They are also equipped with backup generators in case of power interruptions. This is crucial for businesses that rely on their data servers to deliver service to their clients.

Cooling

Overheating can cause your systems to malfunction and delay progress. Cooling systems can help you prevent this. Colocation facilities provide ample HVAC systems and other cooling technologies to keep your equipment in mint condition.

Bandwidth

A colocation data centre offers high-speed internet access. This allows clients to access their server’s processing power even if they’re away from the colo facility. If you have plans of collocating, you will only need to provide your business’ physical servers and data storage.

Unlike other kinds of data centres, colocation data centres have more flexibility. Its use can range from data storage to the delivery of applications. Many businesses turn to colocation providers for data management as it gives them the freedom to build diverse and well-integrated networks.

Scaling IT infrastructure more quickly and more affordably

The construction and operation of your own business data centre can cost a fortune. This major investment leads companies to sacrifice the quality of work for quicker development. Smaller businesses may also not have the liberty to build their own data centres.

This is where colocation data centres come in. Businesses can cut expenditures for data storage and management. These colo facilities also help their clients with operational costs.

Colocation providers help you minimize costs without foregoing the scale of your IT network. If you’re working on a budget, check out these best offers of rental racks.

Guaranteed uptime in mission-critical services

Colocation data centres protect your uptime by distributing your IT network to more locations. You can rest assured that your business will keep running even if one location goes down. There will always be another location to take over.

You don’t have to worry about losing crucial data like reports or confidential customer information. A colocation centre serves as an extra layer of disaster recovery.

However, it’s crucial to remember that your provider must be within the same tier as your business needs. Checking on your colocation provider’s network mix and tier carriers is also a good thing to do.

Physical security of your data and IT equipment

Traditional data centres focus on IT network storage and computing within their properties. This makes your company data susceptible to physical threats, like theft. Most office buildings are not designed design to prioritize the safety of data servers.

A more centralized network will not only increase the likelihood of break-ins. It’s also more vulnerable to natural disasters that can destroy the equipment itself, such as hurricanes and tornadoes.

With colo facilities, you can ensure that your servers and equipment are secure. Colo facilities are often built based on industry standards for IT governance. Buildings may also adhere to the standards of other forms of security operations in your state.

Colocation providers are responsible for storing your systems, servers, and equipment. As an extra measure, they may review the physical security of your data. This ranges from perimeter security, video surveillance to 24/7 guard presence and biometric scanning.

Testing products and services for cloud fit

It’s important to note that not all applications are cloud-ready. Some applications can still be sensitive to latency. Some can even have heightened security risks.

For these cases, colocation data centres help their clients by testing whether the products and services can fit the cloud. Your chosen provider will create private clouds to test the products and services in a limited time. This can help you confirm if it’s ready for the public cloud.

Building an edge network

With the growth of the Internet of Things, networks must connect with more devices across bigger distances. Colo can close these gaps between your network and its data sources. They help in building edge networks and even support fog computing.

The closer you can bring your network to the edge of its data, the quicker and more secure you can process them.

How you can benefit from a colocation data centre

Colocation data centres have become a prominent way to store and manage business data. Whether it’s a financial relief to a business’ budget plan or securing the physical safety network, a colocation data centre can cover all your IT needs. Here are some of the benefits of colocation and how it can boost your business operations.

Interested in migrating to a colocation data centre? That’s where we come in. Get in touch with us for your colo inquiries and needs.

June 21, 2021June 22, 2021 by Matt Seaton

London East Build Blog – Weeks 59 to 62

We have a very exciting instalment of the build blog this time around, as we see masses of containment and cabling begin to roll into position at London East, along with civil works for our HV mains incomers.

This is another major turning point in the development of the new facility, as we head ever closer to energising the site ready for client deployments.

Weekly overview

Massive change has begun in earnest this week, as masses of under floor containment begins to flow into Data Hall 1. This has been flood cabled, and the installation team will then move onto the main containment runs which allow for cabling between the upstairs data halls and the downstairs LV rooms.

We’ve also got major civils happening both on-site and in the local area, as our incomers make their way to us, along with our first dark fibre links.

Electrical — The electrical boards have been installed on their custom plinths in Data Hall 1, on both A and B sides – the A side boards are pictured here, along with the M&E board which has an integral ATS to handle twin incomers from the LV rooms

HV Roadworks — Our HV supply is making its way to us from the relevant substations, with a view of the route works on the surrounding roads on the trading estate

Our LV rooms are prepped and ready for the boards to arrive, which are landing with us early next week – an exciting milestone

Trades Canteen — Data Hall 4 has been doubling up as a trades canteen and plans overview space while various contractors are on-site

Transformer — The first of the ground works equipment arriving on-site, ready to begin digging in our transformer base

Additional works have been underway in other areas, including final containment runs for the LV room VESDA and fire systems – these continue on into the risers, which are having twin-run trunking installed to handle all fire systems in these rooms

As you can see, things are changing rapidly now that the main electrical works are underway. Next week, we’re expecting to see completion on the in-room work for Data Hall 1, meaning containment works will begin in the LV rooms, and all of the runs in between.

We’re now eagerly awaiting the arrival of the large LV switchboards, which will be an exciting development for us. It’s a part of the project that we’ve been excited to see take shape, and an area of enormous financial investment.

While the base of the transformer may appear to be a somewhat simple hole in the ground, and a straightforward concrete pour, in reality it’s anything but. The internal rebar structure has been welded on-site, and is bonded directly to very deep earthing rods to ensure safety during operation.

Once Data Hall 1 is phase one complete on commando cabling, our team will move in to complete some additional items, including M&E feeds for cooling, VESDA pipework, ODF installation for network and fibre, and other related containment and cabling pieces.

What else has been happening?

We’ve extended our reach in Telehouse through to North 2.

As part of a private client deployment, we’ve rolled out two new racks in North 2, and as part of this we’ve now got diverse 10Gbps feeds from our network delivered into the building, from our Supernode in North, and our core node in HEX / LD8.

We’re excited to see our network continue to grow, reaching new facilities as our transit proposition helps business grow their presence online.

What’s next?

We’ve really just got lots of the same coming up; containment and cabling for the most part, throughout the facility, as we head towards energisation.

This will include works on the HV and transformer side, and will lead onto various M&E works including cooling power, data, control, and further leading on from that, VESDA air sample pipework.

June 3, 2021 by Matt Seaton

What is full rack colocation?

The global colocation services market grew by 13.7 per cent through the end of 2020. More and more companies are choosing to use a colocation data centre rather than holding their servers in-house.

If you’re thinking about moving your server into a colocation centre, you’ll need to determine how much rack space you’ll need. Let’s look at the different options, from per-unit colocation through full rack colocation.

What is colocation?

A colocation facility lets you rent space for your servers and other hardware. You own the equipment so you can invest in whatever type of hardware is best for your business. The colo facility provides physical space for it as well as power, physical security, and the network backbone to connect it resiliently to the internet.

The main difference from other hosting services is that you own the hardware. With traditional hosting services, you rent the server from them but you don’t necessarily have complete control over how it’s configured.

This can limit your options as well as cost more in the long term.

Differences in colocation space

Server racks get measured in terms of rack Units (U) and rack-mounted servers are designed to meet a standard size. A 1U server is approximately 19 inches wide, 36 inches deep, and 1.75 inches in height.

A “rack” is exactly what it sounds like — a rack that the servers get bolted into. They’re built to a standard size so they can house almost any brand and model of server. A typical full-sized rack contains 42U of space.

Per-unit colocation

Per-unit colocation is the smallest amount of space you can get. The most common options available at this level are 1U, 2U, and 4U.

These options are ideal for small businesses, start-ups, and anyone who doesn’t have huge resource requirements but still wants to host their server in a data centre. This gives you the benefit of the data centre’s infrastructure without having to lease more space than necessary.

Quarter rack colocation

Quarter rack colocation is a good option if you’ve got enough equipment to need more than 4U of rack space. Assuming the rack has a total of 42U, you’ll end up with about 10U in a quarter rack.

How much of that space is available for you to use depends on how the rack is configured. The spacing of the divider shelves between each rack unit uses some space and there may be other items using part of it as well.

With quarter rack colocation from Netwise, you’ll have 10U of space, which is fully segregated and lockable.

Half rack colocation

Half rack colocation segregates half of the total rack space for your use. In a 42U rack cabinet, you’ll have 20U of space to work with.

Full rack colocation

With full rack colocation, the entire rack is dedicated to your use. You can use the full 42U of space for whatever your needs might be, including:

Private cloud servers
GPUs for machine learning and/or artificial intelligence
VoIP equipment
Network storage

This also gives you more flexibility to install non-rack-mountable equipment using data cabinet shelves. For example, if you have a tower server that you want to install in your rack, it won’t necessarily be a standard U size.

Segregated Colocation vs Per-Unit

At a glance, full rack colocation (or any other size of segregated colocation) doesn’t seem that different from per-unit space. After all, if you need a full rack, couldn’t you just order 42U of space on a per-unit basis?

You could, but segregated colocation offers a few additional benefits compared to a shared rack.

First, with full rack colocation, you can lock the cabinet so only the IT personnel you approve will have access to it. With per-unit colocation, several users will likely share the same rack.

Second, you’ll have more flexibility with the equipment you install in the rack. Some devices only need 1U of rack space while others are larger and might need 2U, 3U, or more.

With a full rack, you can configure the layout any way you like to maximize your use of the space.

Full rack colocation can also be more cost-effective. A full rack doesn’t cost twice as much as a half rack so it might be the right choice even if you don’t need all the space immediately.

Finally, if you don’t need a full rack for your equipment, you might want to consider leasing the extra space to your clients or companies that you work with.

How to determine how much space you need

Figuring out how much colocation space you need is as simple as adding up the U heights of the servers and other equipment you’ll be installing in the rack. For example, if you have four 1U devices, two 3U devices, and two 2U devices, you’ll need at least 11U of rack space, plus some additional space for cable management and cooling consideration.

If your equipment needs more than 20U, full rack colocation is the only option that provides enough space. But if it needs less than 20U, you might still want to consider full rack colocation for the reasons we mentioned above.

If you work in certain industries, you might also need to consider regulatory restrictions when choosing colocation. In the healthcare or financial markets, for example, you might need to use segregated colocation to meet the compliance requirements for the security of your clients’ personal information, meaning that shared per unit colocation is not a possibility, even for a single server.

Where to turn for help with your colocation needs

If you’re looking for full rack colocation in the UK, Netwise can help. We offer a range of server colocation services ranging from 1U through full rack options.

We’ve been providing colocation services for over a decade and are one of the UK’s leading service providers. Get in touch with us today to discuss your colocation needs or to book a tour of our data centre facilities.

May 25, 2021May 25, 2021 by Matt Seaton

London East Build Blog – Weeks 56 to 58

Another period of exciting change and development on-site at NLE, as we continue to move towards phase one completion and readiness for the first clients to enter Data Hall 1.

We’ve seen the most notable changes in cooling and electrical, with major physical advancements in both of these critical areas.

Weekly overview

This latest period of work most keenly focused on major adjustments to our roof, through the installation of seven custom exhaust cowls which form the atmospheric extraction loop for the evaporative cooling system in Data Hall 1.

Roof Cowls — Here we see six of the seven extraction roof cowls for Data Hall 1 installed on the roof of the building, over the cold corridor

Loading Bays — Although we’ve already shown the newly completed loading dock setup in the warehouse, here is a wider view of the first floor assembly, to match that seen on the ground floor

Fire — Our new master building fire panel is now in place, ahead of final commissioning – this new system is considerably larger and more feature-rich than the system it’s replacing

Plinths — Here we see our custom designed plinths being fitted and levelled in one of the LV electrical rooms, which will soon take our main switchgear

Risers — We’ve now begun preparing the main risers for cable ladder and other containment, which is set for installation next week ahead of flood cabling and commissioning the site throughout June

Boards — Here we see one of our custom designed cableway enclosures, sat atop one of the newly installed plinths – our custom Mardix transfer boards then sit on top of these enclosures, in each LV room and data hall

We’re very happy with progress over the past few weeks, as we march further into the final stage of deployment for phase one.

Much of the work this time around has been labour intensive and highly physical, resulting in massive adjustments to both the cooling and electrical sides of the project. This all sets up nicely for the building-wide under floor containment to be installed from next week, leading into a four week period of high-activity on-site as the facility is energised.

We’ve reached a relatively pivotal point in the project now, in that the dominoes we’ve been lining up throughout the last few weeks / months are now ready to be pushed, which will lead to massive change in the next four to six weeks. Ultimately, this next phase will take us through to onlining and commissioning, and put us in a position to bring the first client systems online, and launch the site as phase one (aka Data Hall 1) completes.

What else has been happening?

Aside to the usual build works, we’ve also been hard at work implementing wider improvements across our operation.

Our London Central facility enjoyed a deep clean last week, including a full re-coating of the anti-static floor in all technical spaces.

We upgraded our core routing fabric in Telehouse North, as we prepare to deploy additional capacity in Telehouse North 2 next month. This is something we’re very excited about, as we move into the newest building on the Telehouse Docklands campus for the first time. We’ll be upgrading our Harbour Exchange / LD8 and City Lifeline fabrics very soon.

Civil works have now begun on both our grid feeds and our main fibre incomers, with visible roadworks now underway in the area surrounding our new facility. We’re very excited to see these critical services edge ever-closer to the site, ready for connection and use.

What’s next?

In the next week or so, the energisation process begins. This will last around a month, taking us from the current state to having full and final energy pathways deployed within the facility. This includes the work in getting our new feeds from the grid to our building.