I’ve been in countless data centres over the past 20+ years and it never ceases to amaze me how cluttered and disorganized corporate data centres are when compared to the commercial, multi-tenanted facilities operated as colocation facilities.
Its not that the corporate data is any less important but for some reason people seem to be comfortable leaving their own facility a disorganized mess of wiring while at the same time expecting 3rd party facilities to be the polar opposite.
While there are absolutely good reasons why some people should not operate their own facilities a number of organizations I’ve provided relocation services to over the years seem to be fixated on leaving their mess behind them when what they really should have focused on was getting a handle on the facility they owned. Simply relocating equipment will not improve the quality of the documentation or the stability of the network.
One of the things we starting doing early in the life of Prosedium was to bring a consistent and comprehensive approach to collecting and documenting all design information so that we could actually prepare for a relocation. On most occasions we could have simply cleaned up the customer’s facility using the documentation we created and the customer would have actually had a pristine facility with ample capacity to grow and no ongoing 3rd party expense.
Granted, not everyone can accomplish this but I do feel strongly that the first step in planning any relocation is to assess the options available and from those options a path will emerge that is both budget and risk aligned. Over the next few weeks I’ll be exploring the various things companies can do to organize their technology assets, negotiate a great colocation agreement or even begin the process of cloud services adoption.