Your organisation’s IT infrastructure is critical to success, but it can be challenging and expensive to keep everything on premise – you need to worry about power, cooling, security, space, and so much more. That said, moving your data centre off premise isn’t always easy either. Like moving home, there are plenty of potential pitfalls throughout the process and the upheaval can be nerve wracking. But, when done right, migrating IT infrastructure and workloads to a facility that will support, secure and connect your IT infrastructure, allows organisations to deliver against their business or IT strategies.
Migrating to an off premise colocation provider – making it a success
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Navigating migration challenges
Triggers for the move off premise
Once the decision has been made to move IT off premise, and the perfect data centre has been found, the process involves significant planning. The implications for IT strategy need to be considered, as well as the practicalities of the actual migration and the steps that will be taken to ensure the continuation of business-as-usual throughout.
Our partnerships with clients often begin with an acknowledgement that their current provision will not support the evolving and increasing demands on their IT; perhaps they have been impacted by downtime, or they realise that their on premise facility won’t allow for planned expansion.
Our prospective clients frequently present a similar set of requirements, and the questions they ask are often indicators of their past experiences. They may talk of issues with underperformance on the part of their previous data centre partner, or of inflexible contracts, unresponsive client support, or a particularly difficult migration process. Others may never have considered moving their IT off premise before, so they simply don’t know what to ask.
Priorities when choosing a colo provider
Existing users of colocation frequently consider service and support to be key differentiators between colo offerings. What’s most important is knowing their provider won’t leave them in the dark and that their infrastructure and data won’t be vulnerable. Their priorities are often reflected in the questions they ask:
Can your data centre be trusted to perform?
Stories of major outages are the stuff of nightmares for most IT managers. Not all data centres are the same, and some offer higher levels of redundancy and resilience. Our 100% uptime SLA offers assurance against the risks of downtime.
Will my move off premise significantly improve the security of my equipment and systems?
Multi-layered security is vital to protect business-critical IT and workloads, and this isn’t something that most on premise facilities can provide.
Is the monitoring, management and maintenance of your facilities thorough, and is someone always on hand to resolve any issues, should they arise?
Our facilities are available 24 x 7 x 365, and our remote hands services can be called upon at any time, day or night.
How environmentally efficient are your data centre facilities really?
In short, as environmentally efficient as we can be! Environmental concerns are a hot topic, particularly with the recent dramatic rises in power costs. Yes, data centres are major consumers of power, but we take our responsibility for reducing our environmental impact very seriously. We are able to access better power contracts due to our scale and, importantly, our data centres use renewable power, full carbon offsetting and environmentally efficient cooling systems to minimise power usage and reduce costs for our clients.
Will I be tied to certain connectivity carriers?
Many on premise data centres are constrained in their choice of carrier, which can compromise network strategy (resilience and latency) and be less cost effective due to lack of market choice. Our facilities are carrier-neutral, so our clients can select (or blend) the best providers for their needs, from a competitive market.
Migrating your IT to a data centre - considerations
There are many elements to consider when choosing a location for your precious business-critical IT and workloads:
- What’s the access like? How easy it to access the location and park close by? Do you have to scale steps and narrow entrances when installing your kit?
- Structural integrity. With any house move, you’d enlist a surveyor to ensure the building is safe, secure and will stand the test of time. So, what about your data centre? What standards has it been built to, what accreditations does it have, and is it well maintained?
- How do we get the power on? When it comes to moving into a data centre, you need to get it right. Will someone be on hand to help and guide you, and is there any risk of downtime during the switchover?
Seamless migration
Our London edge and Manchester-based colocation data centres offer a secure, reliable and vastly improved alternative to hosting your IT infrastructure on premise. Our world-class data centres are designed for businesses of all sizes and offer a wide range of services that make migrating your IT off premise easy. With our help, you can focus on your business goals rather than worrying about your IT infrastructure.
We offer a comprehensive suite of migration services and our team of experts will work with you every step of the way to ensure a successful transition. Our key differentiator, over and above our state-of-the-art, purpose-built facilities, is the enhanced service that we provide to our clients to make planning and moving as smooth as possible.
Why not ask us about making your move smoother? Contact us today or arrange a tour of our facilities.