I won’t mention any names, but one of the things I’ve come across time and time again in my work at a datacenter, is companies claiming to run their own datacenter when in fact they do not. Why should this matter, you may ask. Well let’s analyze this for a moment.
A good datacenter has been built from the ground up with security and stability in mind. As the owner of the datacenter, it’s your job to ensure that you’ve put measures in place that will assure redundancy. For instance its usually a good practice to have two air conditioners, in case one fails. It’s a generally accepted requirement that you have at least two internet connections, using one as a fallback in the event the main connection goes down for awhile.
As a result of this, problems are usually few and far between in a professional facility. However, when problems do occur, you’re going to want to be able to contact someone directly to notify them. What will the quality of your support be if the person whose contact information you have is themselves just a customer of the actual datacenter?
Naturally, anyone paying to lease or co-locate a server at a datacenter should try to visit the facilities if possible, but if this is not a possibility due to your location, you can still do some research on the provider to see if their claims are true. Linux and Macintosh systems both have a command line program you can use called “traceroute” which will show you the route of hosts along which your data packets travel to reach their destination. This will give you a bit of insight into the topological structure of the company. Another method of remote investigation includes investigating BGP routes, but this requires access to a Cisco router which the general public of course does not have.
The datacenter in which your server or website is housed is the most important aspect of the always-on connectivity of your company’s website, so don’t take this kind of a choice lightly. Being an intelligent consumer when searching for a hosting provider will help make your business more successful.
Tags: editorials
