Whether it’s your company website, business app, official email data or transaction details of your customers; a plethora of options are available for you. From making onsite arrangements to outsourcing data storage and data hosting to third parties; you are free to choose the suitable option for data storage.
When it comes to appointing a data center hosting service, poor choices will destroy your company reputation with poor connectivity, limited infrastructure facilities and lack of scalability. In short, it’s a big decision for any company owner. Before you finalise a service provider, you need to consider few critical things to avoid making a wrong choice. Below I have listed down few basic tips, which will give you a basic understanding to make a logical decision.
Don’t forget the location
Location is the first most important thing you should not forget when choosing a facility provider. Is it physically accessible for you? Under certain circumstances, you have to visit the facility to discuss upgrades and service issues. Also, check the record of natural disasters like floods, earthquake and hurricane in the area.
Although, IT facilities pay particular attention to these factors before building the facility in that area, showing extra care to check these things is never a bad idea. In fact, checking location is more about studying ecosystem of that particular location. Presence of multiple vendors in the area displays the suitability of location.
Do inquire about scalability and flexible expansion capacity
As we all know convenience to add more hardware in the infrastructure without shutting down a setup is the primary reason for outsourcing IT functions to the third-party vendors; you want your service provider to execute not only your current requirements but also future requirements in upcoming years.
You can’t assume the same level of flexibility and scalability with all vendors. Some of them may offer enormous scalability with the flexibility to choose customised solutions, whereas others may not meet your requirements. To inquire about the availability of additional storage space, power and networking facilities to protect you from picking a technical partner that is not able to meet the growing needs.
Always seek for the reliability factor
Reliability is the critical factor successful hiring of the service provider. Trustworthiness of IT vendors is often measured as their capability to offer uptime. A data center has to provide 99.99% uptime to become a reliable IT service provider. The computing industry has set up several technical criteria and ISO certifications and tier ranking system to accredit service providers to offer 100% uptime. Do check performance portfolio, customer feedback and availability of on-site support services to confirm that you are dealing with a trusted vendor.
Ensure efficiency level of deployment
As you are outsourcing or availing services from a service provider, you will desire an efficient and quick deployment. You can’t shut down your business operations for the establishment of data center and migration of data to a third-party facility. Although deployment efficiency level is difficult to measure in numbers, you should ensure that the service provider you are communicating with can confidently give a reasonable timeline for the process.
Observe networking ecosystem
IT vendors with same geographical location often practice peering to exchange internet between two independent networks for mutual benefits. Interconnection with distributors, partners and competitors for peering purpose is valuable for any business. Before you sign the service contract, look for the available peering options. If the service provider you have chosen possesses a vast ecosystem of connected customers, he will undoubtedly provide the same for your facilitation.
Count total number vendors offering hosting services in the area
As I have already mentioned that multiple service providers in the same geography are the clear indication of the suitability of land. This also suggests good network connectivity and reliable power and water supply in the area, which is the must-have for the efficiency of IT vendors.
Don’t ignore financial stability
Lastly, financial stability of the vendor is also an essential parameter you should not ignore. Only a financially strong service provider is capable of bearing the operational expenses. No one wants to hire a vendor whose future is doubtful or which is expected to close in coming years. A financially strong vendor will promise to support and serve its clients at least for 5 years.
Endnote:
Whether you have just established your setup or you have been running setup for a significant period of time, a reliable data center hosting service is mandatory to ensure data security.