Colocation as an option to save on deploying your own infrastructure and solving technical problems



    This can happen to every company. At first, everything works as it should, the equipment functions perfectly, there are no problems and warnings from the monitoring system. But then comes the moment when for some reason everything stops. It happens that the reason is the human factor, often unforeseen situations arise that should happen once a thousand years. Well, for example, somewhere someone damaged the Internet backbone, and the network connection disappeared. Now most companies depend on a wide and reliable Internet channel.

    Everything is online - customer information, web applications that the company needs to work. Well, that's all. And suddenly the connection disappears, and with it access to the information necessary for the normal functioning of the company. And only then you begin to understand that the “cloud” is, of course, very convenient. But if the cloud disappears, then the company's work can simply be paralyzed. You think this cannot be? Well, what happened to Wikipedia in 2012. Amazon failed with a 40-minute crash.

    There are original stories. For example, a case where the Internet and communication with cloud databases disappeared in a hospital. A drunk hunter began firing a shotgun at an internet cable running over the air. And hit. The result is the Internet that has disappeared for a long time.

    Problems with providers happen quite often. If you still have not experienced a disconnection from the vital cloud, then everything can be ahead. But it’s better not to wait for the disaster, but just to prepare, so that later it will not be painfully painful.

    We, Kingservers, have recently talked with some customers about emergencies at their companies. As it turned out, these companies have clear rules in case of network loss. I would like to give some of these rules here, especially since we ourselves use some of the points below.

    So, if something happens to the network connection, employees should know what to do:

    • Contact your administrator reporting a problem. Well this is the most obvious thing an employee can do, right?
    • Record the time the problem started, describing the situation, recording the date, time, and other information. All this can be useful to the support team;
    • Send someone to find out what happened and whether it is possible to solve something in the near future;
    • Inform your customers about the problem so that they are also ready. Communication with customers must be kept in different channels so that as many people as possible learn about the problem.

    Unfortunately, if the central cable is damaged, then practically nothing can be done on your own. But you can prepare for the appearance of the problem before it occurs. Here it is worth taking the following steps:

    • Connection to alternative communication channels (fiber, twisted pair, wireless networks);
    • Use Border Gateway Protocol (BGP);
    • Sign a contract with various telecom operators, so if one is unavailable, all the others will work.

    Own infrastructure or colocation?




    All of the above, mainly applies to companies that have their own data centers. The main problem is that if a company would like to use redundancy in its infrastructure, this is not always possible for several reasons. Home is finance. The installation of redundant lines of anything is quite hard on the pocket. Nevertheless, the data center of the company where critical services / applications are located should have an agreement with at least two different providers who have different Internet channels. Yes, you will have to spend money on equipment and additional services, but sometimes it's worth it. If we are talking about a large company with its own data center, then, in most cases, such a company has the means to maintain its own infrastructure in good condition.

    Small and medium-sized companies have a harder time. Most of them do not have money to create a reliable telecommunications infrastructure. Therefore, it is worth advising such an opportunity as colocation. This service removes the need to develop and maintain your data center. The equipment is hosted by a third-party provider, which does all the work. Such a service as colocation, as a rule, is available for almost all hosting providers, at least large, at least small.

    Its advantage, in most cases, is that most colocation providers have developed and developed infrastructure with redundancy. This includes expensive professional routers and switches, fiber optics and much more. An example is Huricane Electric, we did a little reviewone of her data centers.

    In addition, if you place the equipment somewhere under the responsibility of the contractor, then the contractor will be responsible for everything (but you still need to look at the contract). Judging by an analysis of the situation by Emerson Network Power , the average cost of an undesired network outage failure for a regular company is now $ 8,851 per minute. This is about $ 740,357 for each outage (average value).

    This is a significant amount even for large companies. If you are a SaaS provider, consider how much customers can lose on downtime and try to increase the reliability of your equipment. Otherwise, in the event of a failure, customers will begin to leave, someone will sue. And the operator will have a “fun time” when the management is not engaged in work, but in sitting up pants in the courts (plus we don’t forget about the large expenses that accompany any lawsuit).

    As a conclusion


    Generally speaking, such problems in the IT world arise with enviable regularity. But few people are taught. If you already have your own equipment, it is best to use the redundancy of various infrastructure elements in your data center. If you don’t have your own equipment or you’re sorry for the funds to create your own infrastructure, it’s better to use colocation in a company where there are several communication channels. And then you can not worry (well, almost) about the connection with the network and the operability of your services.



    Colleagues, we, the company Kingservers, are now looking for IT authors for technical sites (not Habrahabr and Geektimes, third-party Russian-language and English-speaking resources). Condition - the person who writes the article (it must be competent and technical) must also have the opportunity to publish it on such a resource. If you are such an author, write in a personal.

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