Tag / london

by Matt Seaton

How to decide between half and full rack colocation

You’ve decided that colocated services are the way forward for your business. You want a reliable data centre so you don’t have to worry about building, maintaining and updating a large computing facility. These rentable data centres take care of all the extra expenses and work with the kind of security that provides peace of mind.

However, you’ll need to analyse the pros and cons when deciding whether a full or half rack is the best solution for your business. Read on to learn more about these options so you can make the most informed decision.

What is Colocation? 

Colocation can be a difficult concept to describe if you’re new to it. Simply put, the term means that servers and other IT equipment from many different companies are ‘co-located’ within one data centre. 

Also referred to as a ‘colo,’ these data centre facilities rent out rack space to third parties. It’s a simple solution designed to assist businesses that don’t have enough resources to maintain their own data centre, but still need the benefits.

Some of the benefits include lower costs, fewer members of staff, easier scalability, and the ability to choose a data centre that’s near your users. Last but not least, because the contracts you sign last at least one year, your monthly expenses are extremely predictable.

Half rack colocation

Half racks offer 20U of colocation space – a perfect solution if your needs are on the smaller end of the spectrum. At 1.75”, a rack unit (or ‘U’) measures the thickness of a single unit server.

Because of the smaller size, most half rack options are less expensive than full rack options, typically ranging between £299.00 to £479.00 per month. They also include: 

  • Power feeds of 2 to 8 amps at 240v
  • Multiple connectivity options 
  • Lockable, segregated racks for extra security

This isn’t a good solution for your business if you’re planning on growing beyond 20U, as you’d need to migrate to a larger enclosure, or contract for another. Half racks don’t give you a lot of available room to add additional equipment, but if you don’t predict on adding more equipment, this can be the most efficient and cost-effective option for your business.

Full rack colocation

If you do planning on scaling your business and adding more equipment, full racks are generally the best option. The larger size allows you to store many more servers and network equipment. 

Like half rack options, full racks are lockable cabinets for extra security. They can only be accessed by IT professionals that are approved by your business.

Because of the extra cost, you don’t want to pay for space that you don’t need, so make sure that your business actually needs this extra room. However, you may want to consider private cages or suites if you anticipate lots of growth that will soon require multiple cabinets. 

Private cages give you a little extra flexibility, such as adding desks, keyboards, monitors, additional cooling elements and more room for network equipment.

Choosing your colocation service provider

There are many providers available for colocated services, and it can be overwhelming to decide who to go with. After all, this is a long term decision that will determine the safety and upkeep of your IT equipment. 

Besides software, hardware, and cost, here are some important aspects to consider:

Security

Ensure that the provider offers both logical and physical security. Logical security is more difficult to determine than physical security, so do your research, or talk to a provider’s customer service department for clarity. You also want features such as biometric or security card access, 24×7 on-site personnel, and the ability to mitigate DDoS attacks.

Carrier options

It’s important that the data centre has various connectivity options available, including a range of blended transit and off-net, direct connection options. The best will be able to provide a wealth of options to suit any budget and requirement. 

Contracts and SLA

Part of the contract should include an SLA (Service Level Agreement) that guarantees certain levels of service, such as uptime, throughput and the mean time between failures and recovery. Ensure that you compare SLAs with the providers you’re considering, and find the one that gives you the most security.

Privacy

Make sure that the colocation service provider you’re considering has the necessary technology, policies, and procedures in place to match your regulatory compliance requirements. For instance, if your data is being transferred to another country, determine the privacy laws there and if any would be violated. 

On-Site Monitoring and Managing 

It’s important to find a provider that provides a consistent temperature-controlled environment. However, that’s not all you need to ensure your equipment is working properly. 

It’s necessary to keep track of the on-site security measures, cooling performance, power conditioning and the general operation of your equipment. You can do this yourself by travelling to the data centre on a regular basis. Another option is to determine if your provider also offers managed services. 

Moreover, environmental probes, rack monitors and power management software can help you monitor the health of your equipment even when you’re not at the location.

The My Netwise customer control panel provides most of this data to end clients as standard, meaning less of this responsibility is placed on the service user.

Colocated services for your business

As you can see, choosing a half rack versus a full rack service is all about your infrastructure needs in the moment. You also need to take into account your anticipated growth.

Geographic flexibility and the ability to travel to your colocation provider is important. It’s also recommended to shop around to find the best deals, SLAs, and features for your area.

Now that you know which option is best for your business, contact Netwise today. As one of the UK’s leading colocation service providers, we offer state of the art, highly resilient private facilities

by Matt Seaton

Ready-to-deploy Cisco hardware

Those of you familiar with our London Central facility will likely be aware of our extensive in-house hardware stocks, which we keep on-site for rapid deployment within the data centre and beyond.

This has always included a wide range of hardware sets, such as base specification servers, power distribution hardware, and a large number of switches and routers.

One of three new bays in our warehouse

We’ve always exercised great effort in ensuring we hold adequate stocks to enable the rapid deployment and response times that we’ve become well known for.

Q1 2019 has seen us extend this on-site capability dramatically as we grow the procurement side of our operation in line with expansion and growth across the board.

We’ve become known as a ‘Cisco house’ here at Netwise, with our network operating entirely on enterprise-grade Cisco architecture, and as a result we’ve focused on this world-leading technology vendor as we’ve built out our on-site stock list.

We now hold over 250 different models, from basic access switches to high-end routing hardware and security devices. All items are fully tested and ready for immediate deployment.

The beauty of holding so much stock here at our London Central data centre is that we’re able to rapidly respond to the exacting requirements of our ever-growing client base, with instantaneous deployment within their racks. We’re also able to supply this hardware to customers all around the world at extremely competitive rates.

We are known for our unfaltering customer support, which covers every facet of a customers operational requirements. This has long included the supply and ongoing support of hardware as part of our colocation service set, so adding to this capability is an important step for us in our continued development and improvement plan.

Matthew Butt, Managing Director

Clients are able to directly request hardware stock lists and will receive first-refusal and the best rates on hardware held on-site.

We know the Cisco eco-system inside out, as part of our own network provision, so we have elected to stock this vendor first and foremost to enable the very best in our ongoing support capabilities.

Matt Seaton, Senior Manager

If you’d like to learn more about what we can supply to you, as part of a world-leading colocation service or otherwise, please do get in touch.

by Matt Seaton

Growth and expansion at our London Central data centre

Growth

As is the case with any modular data centre, available capacity scales with demand. This means that space is built out in stages as the available pool depletes.

This is a design and build technique employed at our London Central data centre, along with many other top modern facilities around the world.

We’re very happy to be in a position whereby the next stage of fit-out works in Data Hall 1 are now well underway.

Our team has completed all containment works for the next three serviceable pods in Data Hall 1, with Pod 3 expected for occupancy in early Q1 2018.

 

Market growth in London

London is now home to the largest retail colocation market in the world, with 7.45 million square feet of data centre floor space.

In Q3 2017 alone, demand for data centre services in London surged by 46.77%, by far the most impressive increase across the FLAP market this period.

This upward trend follows on from wider market analysis, whereby global demand for data centre services is swelling year-on-year as organisations continue to adopt outsourcing strategies for their critical IT infrastructure.

As this demand grows, so to does the pressure for data centre operators to act ethically in the sourcing of their energy, with global consumption expected to exceed 500TWh by 2020. With our own capacity expansion plans in mind, both at our London Central site and future facilities, we have elected to switch to 100% renewable energy across our private estate.

 

Growth at Netwise

Uptake over the past 12 months at our London Central facility has been nothing sort of fantastic.

While this does fall in line with general market expectations, it also stands testament to our growing position as London’s leading independent data centre operator, with a wealth of new enterprises joining us in 2017.

Our modular-by-design data centre allows us to scale up operations as demand for services increases, which is why we are now rolling out Pod 3 ready for occupation, with 4 and 5 on standby for completion as required later in 2018.

Power Upgrade

This all comes as part of a wider internal investment program which has seen our service delivery infrastructure bolstered dramatically this year, across our entire portfolio.

Our recent power capacity upgrade works came to a close this November, a much-anticipated project enabled through a close working relationship with UK Power Networks.

London Central is now perfectly positioned to expand to full capacity in Data Hall 1, along with the fit-out and operation of Data Hall 2 in due course.

We’d love for you to join us as we continue to grow alongside our wide and varied customer base.

Learn more about our Green Data Centres and our Green Colocation services.

by Matt Seaton

What is data center hosting and how can it help me?

A data center is a facility that encompasses a company’s IT services and data management. Learn more about data center hosting in this guide.

While many large companies are starting to build bigger data centers, most small to medium-sized businesses can’t afford to do that. Rather than trying to compete, data center hosting lets your company store information and have your customers connect to servers in a remote location. In these locations, things are better maintained than they would be in-house.

Here are just a few reasons you should consider data centre hosting.

Secure your data better

With the average cost of a data breach now somewhere around £3 million, you can’t afford to let go of your critical information. For small and medium businesses, it’s hard to have the same kind of infrastructure to protect you as large enterprises. However, with a dedicated data centre taking care of your client and company data, you get the same protection that large companies rely on.

New ways of stealing information are created every day. There’s a lot of incentive for people to steal your data, no matter what industry you’re in. Information about your customers can be sold to companies who want to market to them or even competitors who want to steal customers from you.

Data centres not only keep your information protected physically, but they also assist with digital protect, to protect against intrusion over the network. With on-site staff and a high level of clearance needed to even get to your server, only a few privileged people ever get within a few feet of your servers. That means they can’t connect to the nearby network and they can’t harm the physical servers.

Compliance matters

As an increasing number of companies are being held responsible for the hacks that happen to their customers, you could be next. Rather than ending up in the news for all of the good work that you do, you could be in the news because of a huge security breach. If you’re in the medical industry or working on government contracts, this could cost you your job.

Using a data centre ensures that you’re compliant to the needs of your customers and clients. It costs companies a lot in time and energy to keep up with the changing compliance issues. Colocation allows you to take those worries off of your list.

Rather than losing your clients because of mismanaged accounts, let one of your competitors take the heat for that. Take advantage of the fact that data centres are well versed in how to protect your critical systems to keep you from a bad audit of your data management.

Cost savings

Ask any business owner and they’ll tell you the number one line-item cost that they worry about from day to day is the cost of staffing. However, if you want to have your data managed properly and your system up to date, you need to pay for the best talent out there.

Thankfully, data centres have done the work to hire the most talented IT staff around. Because they need people who can learn on the fly and also who have experience with a variety of challenges, they attract serious talent.

The cost of having a reliable IT professionals on staff who are flexible enough to handle anything thrown at them could drag down your profits. Instead, with a data center handling your company’s servers, you get a team of people who can tackle any issue. You’ll have immense flexibility to grow, scale, or implement new technology without having to take on massive staffing costs.

Scalability

Building your own data centre is challenging. Even if you’re in the tech industry, making space for servers and equipment is hard. Then you’ve got to make sure you’ve designed everything to stay cool and temperature controlled.

Rather than having to invest in real estate when you want to offer more to your clients, you can let someone else deal with that.

Building an in-house data centre also means that you need to know in advance how much space you will need. If you’re on a path toward growth, you could over or under-build, meaning you have to take on the whole project again in a year or two.

If you decide you need to grow, you can expand your services inside a data centre in 24 hours or less. If things are slowing and you need to scale down temporarily, you can often do it in the same amount of time. Data centre hosting can be form-fitted around your business needs.

Less to maintain

Maintaining your data centre is a hidden cost of building one. The cooling elements, power supplies, UPS batteries, and generators all need to be taken care of.

If you’re already stretched thin, adding a layer of maintenance is going to cause you some serious headaches.

Using a data centre means that you’ve got someone else worrying about batteries, fuel, and temperatures. They’ll also test and maintain redundancy on a regular basis.

You could save money and time without ever having to worry about major infrastructure upgrades or power supply issues ever again.

Data center hosting is a smart solution

Rather than taking on the nitty-gritty details of data management, data centre hosting gives you the chance to focus on building your business. Just like you’d hire someone to clean up your office in the evenings, hire someone to be the custodian of your critical business systems who have the tools to do it.

For more of the kinds of services a data centre can provide, check out our guide to connectivity.

by Matt Seaton

Working at one of London’s premier data centres

Netwise NOC

Would you like to work at one of London’s premier data centres?

Data centres are, without question, the epitome of the modern high-tech working environment. Cutting edge technology, ultra resilient infrastructure, a constant stream of exciting new projects; what’s not to love?

There are very few career opportunities which offer such broad access to the latest and greatest innovations in mission-critical infrastructure and systems, with a complete focus on leveraging this technology to better the business operations of organisations around the world.

 

Why data centres?

The data centre industry is booming, particularly here in London, which is one of the world’s foremost business and connectivity hubs.

As more and more end user services move into ‘the cloud’, the global reliance on data centres increases day-by-day, and there is no sign of this slowing down. In fact, demand for data centre services is set to grow exponentially over the coming decade, and far beyond.

Data Hall 1

The demand placed on data centres continues to rise everyday. Countless digital services are now delivered entirely over the web, all of which are delivered from data centres around the world.

Much of the global economy now relies entirely on the data centres and networks that make up the international web of interconnected facilities more commonly referred to as ‘the internet’.

It can be said without hesitation that the data centre industry is very much set to become the foremost technological powerhouse of the next 50+ years.

 

Life at Netwise Hosting

We pride ourselves on designing, building and operating the very best independent data centres.

Not only do we provide a world-class technical environment for our customers, we also provide our team with an exceptional, dynamic working space that we can all call home.

Alongside all things high-tech, we also provide our team with the modern working conveniences found at most FTSE100 tech firms; lounges and kitchens, shower facilities, a staff bar complete with professional table football, an outside decking and seating terrace complete with BBQ for the summer, as well as many team outings to top London entertainment spots.

Kitchen

Reception

Open Plan Office

Board Room

The real question is, why wouldn’t you want to work with us?

 

We’re hiring Technical Support operatives

We’re on the look-out for new members to join our growing technical support team.

Working alongside Krystal Hosting, one of the UK’s fastest growing cloud hosting companies, we’re actively looking for new Technical Support operatives to join us at our London Central data centre.

Applicants would work out-of-hours from our high specification NOC, looking after our systems, infrastructure, and the customer support requirements of both our enterprise colocation customers, and Krystal’s 20,000+ strong cloud hosting customers.

If you think you fit the bill, and would like to learn more about this role, please take a look here. We’d love to hear from you.