Guide

location, location•

•[Co] location,

“ It is change, continuing change, inevitable change that is the dominant factor in society today. No sensible decision can be made any longer without taking into account not only the world as it is, but the world as it will be.”Isaac Asimov

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Contents

Definition 2

Introduction 3

Trigger 4Office move

Governance

Fit for purpose

Plan 5Preparation

Audit

Downtime

Approach

Business case

Migration risks

Countdown 6Audit – wait, what? Again?

Pre-cable

Testing

Move 7Packing

Unpacking

Roll back

Conclusion 8

Checklist 9

DefinitionFirst off, let’s be clear exactly what we are going to discuss – what is colocation?

Colocation – Noun:

“A colocation (Co-Lo) is a data centre facility in which a business can rent space for servers and other computing hardware. Typically, a Co-Lo provides the building, cooling, power, bandwidth and physical security while the customer provides the servers and storage.”

It is important to understand that while colocation is part of the cloud umbrella term, colocation forms the base of the Cloud Continuum.

The key thing about colocation vs. the rest of the – aaS continuum, is that it is the environment that you are purchasing – the physical hardware you wish to house is still owned by you.

To give an analogy, colocation is like taking a caravan on holiday to a caravan park – you bring all your home comforts with you, all your personal belongings, everything you need for a nice time. When you get to the park you connect to the on-site electricity and have use of all the available amenities there too.

To extend the analogy, IaaS is like a self-catering holiday you organised yourself, PaaS is like a hotel you have booked through a travel agent and SaaS is like an all-inclusive holiday – but I digress.

SaaS

PaaS

IaaS

(Software-as-a-Service)

(Platform-as-a-Service)

(Infrastructure-as-a-Service)

Colocation

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IntroductionI was recently browsing LinkedIn – flipping through my feed – looking at some of the things people post, when I stumbled across an update with that iconic image from 1956 of IBM moving its first 5Mb external hard drive. Whilst I haven’t been working in the IT industry quite that long, I think anyone who is or has been a part of the industry knows just how quickly things change. One thing that hasn’t changed dramatically during my 25 years is that changing our IT environments is not a decision to be taken lightly and that often the risk can outweigh any expected reward.

This guide is designed to help you work through the drivers, considerations and strategies that need to accompany any move to a colocation or hosted environment – after all, at some point every organisation will have to contemplate a migration within their IT infrastructure, Cloud, and therefore colocation, is a route that needs to be explored.

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Office MoveProbably the most common trigger is a change in the physical location of your organisation – you will have to move all your IT infrastructure anyway, so what better time to consider where you are moving it to.

Risky Business?• The single largest risk of a colocation project

triggered by an office move is time. Usually the decision on location has been made outside of the IT department, sometimes with little or no input and will always have a defined, and usually tight, timeline.

• Another risk with this approach is oddly the volume of choices that IT and senior management have to consider. Why stop at colocation? why not go further up the Cloud Continuum to an IaaS, PaaS or even SaaS solution for your IT infrastructure? Do you take the opportunity to refresh your estate and procure new hardware? Do you want to have that in your own data centre?

• The final obvious risk from the office move trigger is: what is the new office environment like? Sounds silly but things like the availability of connectivity to the new office and whether the site is a new build, refurbished or listed building all have a bearing on the colocation conversation.

GovernanceIn today’s information age, the second most common trigger will be your company’s requirement around compliance, whether as an internal measurement or as a customer requirement. Growth can exacerbate this situation and, as your organisation expands, the need to protect information potentially increases also.

When you begin to contemplate where your key applications and data will reside, and the governance surrounding them, there are some key points you will need to consider.

Questions to Ask• What physical security is in place? Is it 24/7/365?

• What happens if the main power supply is disrupted?

• What happens in the event of fire or flooding?

• What happens when a key application fails at 4am on a Sunday morning?

• What happens if a pneumatic drill cuts through my prime connectivity to the building?

• What contractual obligations do I have to my customers?

• What SLAs and service credits are in place?

• What happens if the air conditioning fails?

• What happens if I need more servers next year?

There is a very good reason why new data centres can cost tens of millions of pounds.

Fit for PurposeAs with compliance, your organisation’s requirements of its data centre facility will evolve over time and you will need to be aware of the consequences that relatively small changes can have on your data centre environment.

LocationIf you already enjoy a colocation deployment of your IT infrastructure, changes in operational location can place unforeseen demands on the IT team. Moving headquarters will not directly affect your IT infrastructure, but your data centre may no longer be on your doorstep, so that simple task of swapping out a failed disk in an array now involves a time-consuming drive for someone.

CostYou are four years into a five year contract and it’s time to begin assessing the contract you have with your current provider – the clock is ticking and where is your bargaining power? If the need to maintain a consistent provision of your IT environment outweighs the risk of changing supplier, you can find yourself trapped in a contract that doesn’t provide you with the most bang for your buck.

The other consideration with cost is whether you’re getting the best value for money? What you currently get for your money compared to what’s now available on the open market can influence your decision on data centre provision.

Upgrade Having dipped your toe into the Cloud Continuum, maybe the time has come to move up the pyramid? Just as moving from a data centre in your own office to a colocation environment offers advantages, so moving from colocation to IaaS can let someone else feed and water your infrastructure, allowing your IT team to focus on projects and activities that will help define your organisation’s future.

Trigger Lets explore what triggers might lead you to consider a colocation strategy.

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PreparationProject management at this stage may seem excessive but the earlier you have controls in place surrounding the assessment, the easier the whole process becomes.

AuditA full audit will be needed – not only of the infrastructure itself, but also the systems and applications that are dependent on the servers, databases and storage areas. This is critical to the next assessment which is:

DowntimeThere will be some. It’s going to happen – and your organisation’s ability to tolerate downtime will heavily influence the route undertaken in any migration, to the point that you may stop the assessment as the required downtime is unpalatable to your organisation. Change windows need to be established. You may already have these set up, and any disaster recovery plans should highlight the business-critical applications and services, along with the mitigations and workarounds already in place.

ApproachSo based on the output of your audits you should now have a landscape in which you can make an informed decision – firstly, on the viability of any migration, and then regarding the suggested approach in the form of a business case for your organisation’s key stakeholders.

Business Case Your business case needs to capture the essence of all the data you have gathered to this point. As a minimum:

• Cost

• Risk

• Compliance and governance requirements

• Location

• Approach

• Physical requirements (power, cooling, security)

• Age of current deployment

• Organisational growth estimates

Migration RisksAny risks should be captured in the business case but as this is likely to be an organisational focus it is worth dipping into this in a little more detail.

AgeThe age of your current IT infrastructure and its complexity needs to be given careful consideration. Older kit may not have easily available spares to hand or may be running software that is not supported by the manufacturer anymore – all of this carries inherent risk before you even begin to assess the ease at which it could be migrated.

NetworkThe connectivity you have between your IT infrastructure and the consumers of those services is the life blood of your organisation, so ensuring the connectivity you have provisioned is fit for current requirements and is scalable for the future is critical. Also factors like IP address ranges and changes can have a massive effect on your IT team’s workload going into any migration.

Lead TimesConnectivity can, depending on exact requirements, have a long lead time to delivery, especially when issues like wayleaves and diverse routing are thrown into the mix. The delivery of large quantities of new hardware can also present problems if you are taking the sensible approach of standardising server or switching manufacturers and models.

RacksNot all racks are created equal so knowing the vital statistics of your current and new racking is essential.

PowerAs one of the largest consumable elements of a data centre, knowing the power limit of the racking you have and what you need vs. what is being offered is key. It is also beneficial to capture at this point whether the racks have power distribution unit mounting in them and whether they are metered or not.

Hardware MovementMoving equipment like this needs specialists – there is no way around it. You are unlikely to have the flight cases and other protective apparatus that you will need to make sure everything arrives at your new locations safe and sound – to ensure that warranties and support contracts remain valid. There are specialist third parties who move customer environments day in, day out – they are worth their weight in gold!

Insurance of equipment will also need to be checked and uplifted if required.

PlanThe most crucial part of any decision on the future of your IT infrastructure is to identify what you have and who the key stakeholders are.

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CountdownThe die is cast and you are in the final countdown to your relocation. What do you need to bear in mind in the last 12 weeks?

Audit – wait, what? Again?That’s right. At least 6 weeks before the physical migration, you will need to have completed a physical audit of your current environment. This is your live snap shot of the infrastructure and is your final sanity check of everything that you have documented up to this point.

So cross check those racks, devices, makes and models one more time in order to produce your finalised documents:

• Existing racks and U location

• Destination racks

• Patching schedules

• Device serial numbers

• Port population on each device (e.g. Nic 1 – RJ45, Nic 2 – Fibre)

• Label. All dedicated, interconnecting cables (e.g. SCSI) as these will need to be removed, packed and reconnected at the destination. Other cabling like CAT6 doesn’t need to be labelled as these are likely to be replaced with the correct length cable at the new location. This is a great opportunity to tidy up that rogue cabling and put in a key colour-coding for future simplicity.

You can use something as simple as Excel to create your patching schedule or something like RackTables.

Finally, your audit will give you a running order of the systems and services to move and at what time – critical for when you come to decommission/recommission.

Pre-CableTo minimise downtime, in line with best practice, you should pre-cable at least 4 weeks ahead of the scheduled migration. Engineers will pre-cable from the top of the server rack installing switches, patch panels, copper and fibre.

This is where some of your auditing preparation comes into play as you can ensure you have the right cabling to the correct U within the rack, and adequate power provisioned for each server. Your clever colour coding system now means you can identify systems and dependencies quickly in the future.

TestingMake sure that you have captured and documented test plans for all systems, including a rigorous method to conduct them and for sign-off. As part of this assessment, make sure that you have roll back triggers and contingencies in place so, should the worse happen, you have a plan to mitigate any identified issue.

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MoveSo the big day arrives and you are ready to go.

PackingBefore anything moves out of its current position, it needs to be labelled. Stickers, packing labels, anything as long as it is physically attached to the server and accurately describes what it is, where it has come from and where it is going – just like you would label your suitcase before heading off on a trip.

Now the equipment can be de-racked, wrapped in anti-static bubble wrap and placed into purpose built, foam lined, rail kit flight cases. These cases should then be tagged and sealed before being checked against your audit to ensure everything that needs to leave makes its connection.

Once checked and the inventory signed off by the project owner, all items can be loaded into GPS tracked vehicles and begin the move to their new home.

Unpacking On arrival and before you move on to breaking the security seals and unpacking, carry out a quick check that everything which left your old location has arrived.

Unpack and uninstall all devices in line with your destination rack plans and commission them in line with your patching schedule – this is no small job so ensure that your project plan allows plenty of time to get this spot on.

When all this is completed it’s over to your technical teams to start powering up and testing.

Roll BackOnce you commence your testing plans hopefully everything will run smoothly, but there should be stand-up breaks in the day so the progress of the recommissioning and testing can be evaluated and any issues assessed. There should be a formalised process to identify if and when a roll back needs to occur, including the potential to move back to the original location.

© 2016 Daisy Group. All rights reserved.COBR/04/16

Conclusion“Plans are nothing; planning is everything.”

Dwight D. Eisenhower

Hopefully this document will have given you some insight into a physical migration and the considerations of planning a colocation environment, and hopefully made it a less daunting proposition. The key, as with any big change, is planning; the more you do, the less risk you are exposed to and the smoother the migration.

The trigger for a colocation conversation and assessment needn’t be terrifying, it could be a golden opportunity to appraise your IT infrastructure and ensure that you have suitable platforms in place, not only for today but for the short to mid-term – and the foundation of a long term infrastructure that grows with your organisation.

With over a decade of experience in the management and operation of 10 Tier II and III data centres, Daisy is uniquely placed in the UK to help you assess the viability of colocation for your organisation. So whatever your trigger for considering colocation, make sure you know the right questions to ask. To help you, we’ve included a mini checklist in the appendix to get you started – but if you’d like to know more why not give us a call.

Next Steps

To find out more, contact us on:

0344 863 3000

enquiry.dcs@daisygroup.com

Or if you’re an existing customer, get in touch with your account manager directly.

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ChecklistTo help you a evaluate colocation providers when you are touring data centres, the checklist below will help you ask the important questions that will affect your colocation assessment. It is by no means exhaustive, but if you only ask these questions it will give you a framework to gauge each offering.

Space

How many racks do you need?

How many racks are there and how many are currently in service?

Power

How much power in kW do you need for each rack?

How much power do you need to build in for future contingency?

Location

Is the location convenient for your technical teams?

Does the supplier have multiple geographically dispersed data centres?

Are there any risks based on location, e.g. flooding?

Resiliency

Are there precautions in place to address natural disasters and other threats, e.g. are there local rivers or flooding risks?

Security

Does the site adhere to particular accreditations, e.g. IL3?

What access restrictions are in place?

What restrictions do you need?

Diversity

Does the facility have access to multiple connectivity providers?

Do they allow interconnection with other carrier Meet-me-rooms?

Scalability

Can the provider support High Density rack configuration?

Hybrid

What is the set up for hybridisation?

Even if you don’t need it now, make sure it is possible!

SLA

What are the availability SLAs?

Is there a provision for service credits in the event of a breach?

Compliance

Is the facility audited?

If so, how often?

Is this audit accessible?

Cost

What is the cost model?

Is the monthly pricing inclusive or exclusive of power?

Support

What technical support is available?

When is it available, 24/7/365? Mon-Fri 9am-5pm?

What is the process for engaging the provider’s technical teams?

Amenities

Does the provider have shared workplaces and conference rooms that you can access?

What is the process for entering the location?

Environment

Does the provider adhere to any energy efficiency industry standards?

© 2016 Daisy Group. All rights reserved.