Choosing a data center isn’t something you should take lightly, especially since you are going to be housing your critical infrastructure at another individual’s facility. Before you ever settle on one facility over another, you need to evaluate a few different criteria. As you search for your next data center, stop and think about the following features. You will quickly learn how important it is to look at these reasons to select the right data centers.

Data Center Location

When choosing a data center, you should first think about location. This is important for a whole host of reasons. First, think about how easy it is for someone from your office to get to the location. You don’t want to make someone drive hours to get to the facility if you ever do have to upgrade your equipment. The last thing you want is to have your equipment down for hours at a time. That could cost you far more than you realize.

Another thing to think about is whether the facility is in an area that is prone to natural disasters. Many data centers have already accounted for these things beforehand, but it still doesn’t hurt to ask just to err on the side of caution. Another thing to ask about is what the plan is in the event of a power outage. This lets you know if you need to come up with a backup plan to protect your data or not.

Data Center Reliability

As you try to figure out what data center to choose, you should look at their overall reliability rate. Find out what their total up-time is versus how much time they are down. Any reliable data center should have a reliability rate of almost 100%. Look for other things like customer feedback and on-site support. Customer feedback says a lot about how the data center is as a whole. Since there is no way to predict what might happen, it is important that there are support members located on-site to assist when the need arises.

Data Center Flexibility and Overall Scalability

When choosing a data center, you have to think about flexibility and scalability. While your business might only consist of one office and six employees right now, that doesn’t mean you are going to stay that size forever. What happens when your business grows to 100 employees over five locations? Can the data center grow with you? If not, they probably aren’t going to be in your best interest.

Stop and think about the future and where you want to be years from now. You don’t want to end up holding your business back because you chose a provider who wasn’t able to grow with your business. Being prepared about what the facility’s connectivity, power and space is will prevent any unexpected surprises down the road.

Data Center Financial Stability

Consider how financially stable the data center is. Imagine what might happen if you were to invest a significant amount of money into the center only to find out they were shutting down within the first two years you were with them. If a data center can’t support you for five years or more, it might be time to look at other facility’s. Not sure how to find out the viability of a center? You can easily gain access to their financial history or financial reports. Companies that are doing good and expanding their forces will often have a press release issued outlining their expansion and upcoming changes.

By looking at the four things above, you can choose a data center that is going to work the best for your needs. To find out more information about what we have to offer as a data center consultant, contact us today or use the form below to search for data centers near you.