7 DCIM Considerations When Choosing a Colocation Provider

7 DCIM Considerations When Choosing a Colocation Provider

1. Is the location easily accessible to servicing vendors and employee access, as well as are there costs and risks driven by environmental conditions?
2. Are the power supply and costs reliable?
3. Is there appropriate cooling and PUE management to keep costs consistent and predictable while reducing overheating risks?
4. Does the host use DCIM software tools, and can you interface with them to monitor and manage your environment?
5. Is there adequate physical security and reliable audit trail documentation?
6. Is there a comprehensive and integrated workload and workflow system in place?
7. Is the Colocation vendor’s Service Level Agreement in alignment with the tier requirements of the applications placed there, and are they transparent regarding SLA performance?

Challenges
The complexity of technology and the hybridization of the compute infrastructure is requiring new skill sets and a broader depth of talent that organizations are challenged to find. These factors are driving the need for automation, as found in DCIM, and a resurgence in engagement with integrators such as IBM, Atos, and Accenture.

Quality of connectivity is critical more so now than ever. Organizations need to know latency, jitter, and packet loss to ensure predictable quality data transactions. To achieve quality network connectivity, a dedicated and secure connection not typically found in an IP connection is required. These connections can be very costly and time-consuming to manage. Colocation providers can provide these and grantee them with their SLAs.

The growing diverse footprint of the hybrid cloud, demand consolidated visibility for capacity planning and workload placement and optimization. DCIM helps provide the visibility to manage these workloads and understands them to automate the workflows needed to manage them across the hybrid environment.

New technology, available skills, and lacking DevOp tools challenge the move to hybrid cloud, adding complexity to capacity management. There are more and more computing platforms demanding the metrics to know where to place a workload. More and more applications are getting placed in nonoptimal platforms. There is a need to know resource availability and how much subscription to commit to for maximum optimization of workloads.

What To Do Now
When selecting a colocation partner, first understand the 7 Key Best Practices. View them as an extension of your own compute infrastructure. Make sure they provide tools giving you visibility, management, and validation of SLA of your real estate. Ideally find a Colocation partner that provides a portal that allows you to manage your environment and integrate with your own DCIM solution.