How many datacentres do you have across your organisation?
It’s a simple enough question, but the answer is sometimes not as simple as some organisations think.
The reason for this is it’s too easy to imagine different physical locations equating to different datacentres.
There are actually two conditions that must be met before a server room can be considered a fully independent datacentre. These are:
- Physical separation – The room/building must be sufficiently physically separated from other datacentres. By “sufficiently”, I mean that any disaster situation the company designs into its contingency plans should not be able to take out both more than one datacentre on the basis of physical proximity to one another.
- Technical separation – The room/building must be able to operate at its full production potential without the direct availability of any other datacentre within the environment.
So what does it mean if you have a datacentre that doesn’t meet both of those requirements? Quite simply, it’s not an independent datacentre at all, and likely should be considered just a remote server room which is part of a geographically disperse datacentre.
If you’re wondering what the advantage of making this distinction is, it’s this: unless they’re truly independent, considering geographically disperse server rooms to be datacentres results in the business often making highly incorrect assumptions about the resiliency of the IT systems, and by extension, the business itself.
You might think that we have enough differentiation by referring to simply datacentres and independent datacentres. This, I believe, compounds the problem rather than introducing clarity; many people, particularly those who are budget conscious, will assume the best possible scenario for the least possible price. We all do it – that’s why getting a bargain when shopping can be such a thrill. So while-ever a non-independent datacentre is referred to as a datacentre, it’s going to be read by a plethora of people within a business, or the customers of that business, as an independent one. The solution is to take the word away.
So, on that basis, it’s time to recount, and answer: how many datacentres does your business truly have?