Why outsource your infrastructure?

No organization is the same as it was ten years ago, or even five years ago. Technology has changed so much and societal events such as the pandemic and the scourge of ransomware have changed it still further. The only certainty is that it will continue to change. One of the big changes to come out of the 2019 to 2022 pandemic is the difficulty in finding qualified and affordable IT team members. It also saw a huge change in IT leadership.

When leadership does change, the vendor relationships also inevitably change. Where once ABC company was the vendor of choice, now DEF company is the only one to trust. That causes a headache for the CFO, upset and loss of productivity within the department, unnecessary and premature expenditure on someone else’s hardware and another multi-year commitment to a proprietary platform.

The C-suite can’t function in a mode where their fingers are crossed that their IT leader won’t leave or their chosen vendor’s capabilities slip behind those of a competitor.

The logical alternative is to embrace the cloud, which is nothing more than someone else’s computer, located somewhere else. To some degree most businesses have already done so, but there are still some that continue to operate out of their own data room somewhere in their office building for some critical applications, because of the desire to know where their data is, and who is in control of it. In reality, it’s really time to go!

Another consideration is that server hardware has become a commodity item. Now, the only thing that matters is how much RAM you need and what type of storage works best for your application. The OpEx model of a commercial data center protects you from hardware obsolescence, shields you from seasonal capacity problems and insulates you somewhat from the capricious nature of vendor relationships. It also means that you need fewer on-staff resources because you no longer have an on-site data room.

The only important things to worry about now is if you have the right software (we can’t really help there), if the commercial data center is secure with redundant systems, and that you are comfortable with the people in charge of the data center.

Cyber attacks have become commonplace. Bad actors can buy a targeted attack on the dark web using user-friendly tools that look exactly like ordering online insurance with “good, better, best” recommendations, or “most popular” options. Attacks have many names and origins, so a cohesive strategy is vital. Many attacks originate deep inside the dark recesses of the Internet, and marshal the combined power of a “bot army”. This may sound like something futuristic, but these “armies” exist today, and can bring a business to its knees by bombarding a business’s Internet service to deny access. Other attacks come in the form of ransomware or intrusive hacking for theft or malicious purposes. A different type of defense is needed for this; a tool that autonomously looks at every data packet going in and out of a business, and makes recommendations on how to handle each threat.

A business should think about security differently. Too many businesses have a siege mentality about their offices when it comes to cyber security. A better way to think about it is to build a wall around a wider perimeter, to create a safe haven and more breathing space. Protections should protect core business locations and extend to remote locations, remote devices (like IoT sensors), email, SaaS applications and more.

The costs are governed by the number of endpoints, the total megabits of Internet bandwidth, and the various service applications that apply to a business. Costs for comprehensive and effective cyber security are always preferable to loss of revenue, efficiency, and reputation.

Recovery from an event that interrupts the normal flow of business is difficult. Talking to someone who has been through that process before is essential for being prepared and knowing how to respond.

If business systems are down, it will be the most stressful time imaginable as you face idled employees, loss of revenue and possibly loss of reputation. A plan will take into consideration your compliance obligations, and help define your Recovery Time (before the systems are restored) and Recovery Point (loss tolerance based on data backup frequency) Objectives.

Keep copies of your data locally
National cloud backup services take days to restore your data. Because we’re local, we can download it over a secure network connection in minutes or hand-deliver it on a hard drive to your door. We keep your data local, in our world-class facilities that are always available thanks to redundant, huge Internet pipes and distinct and diverse power sources. We test your Disaster Recovery plans with you twice a year so you are ready to respond if someone tries to hold your business hostage.

In the IT space, “Total cost of ownership”, or TCO, is difficult to calculate because of the sheer number of component parts and choices, plus the opaque cost of services provided by the hyperscale public cloud companies.

Somewhat simpler, are cost comparisons between self-hosting and third-party colocation. A purpose-built, fully redundant data center should offer 100% uptime to minimize revenue lost due to downtime, which is a significant contributor to negative TCO, but is often overlooked. Also, for a business with five or more servers, around 55% of their monthly power bill is spent on just running the data closet. Then there are other expenses, such as the cost to buy and properly maintain a UPS, the regular replacement cost for servers and storage systems and the cost for expertise to maintain them, plus Internet service, the right size firewall, and the cost of the office square footage for the data closet. All these things contribute to the cost of self-hosting.

Colocation in a data center removes many of these expenses and replaces them with a monthly charge that includes rack space, power, cooling, Internet, and UPS. A data center that provides value added services also allows you to replace the cost for servers, storage and the firewall, and also delivers the expertise to run the hardware managing your applications.

This circles back to the monthly cost of hosting applications in the public cloud. Those costs are wildly unpredictable, which a CFO may not appreciate when originally authorizing the expense, because the cost is based on data going in and out of the cloud, whether there are private connections or not. And unless the CFO is extremely vigilant, unwanted or unattended virtual machine can keep billing long past their intended life span.

By contrast, private hosting facilities typically have transparent pricing based on RAM and bandwidth consumed, which improves predictability and is usually priced comfortably below the prices for AWS, Azure, or GCP.

There is much to weigh in the TCO examination, but at the end of the day, so many manufacturers, architects, accounting firms, law firms, banks, and other businesses should not be in the IT business, but still persist in trying to be the expert they really need to be in this day and age.

Recent events have changed the way we all look at our businesses. An office building used to be an anchor, a physical portion of the world that defined who you were as an organization. Now, many businesses see that same office building as a millstone, with too many square feet and an impediment to change. As a result, corporate real estate has adapted, and it is still adapting to those changes. Shorter lease terms with flexible arrangements for tenants are becoming the norm rather than the exception.

If a business is moving to new premises, it’s a huge undertaking to move their IT assets. Equipment might be end-of-life, an Internet provider might not be available, and the overworked IT person has to move everything and get it all ready and working for the next business day.

The same is true for an organization that acquires another. Being in a neutral site with flexible compute and network resources decreases the strain on the IT organization and removes the step costs of having to buy new equipment with every acquisition.

The alternative is to house applications off-site, in a safe, secure, and resilient data center, where nothing changes.