Understanding the options and what’s right for your organization.

A buyer’s guide to hosting and data centre solutions.

Table of contents

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The search for a sustainable data centre .......................................................................2

What do you expect from your data centre? A look at typical requirements ..............................................................................................3

Is hosting an appropriate option for your organization? 10 key factors to consider .......................................................................................................5

Key characteristics of a dependable data centre ..................................................... 6

Choosing a provider. Important questions you need to ask ................................ 9

Data centre solutions from Bell ............................................................................................ 11

The Bell advantage ....................................................................................................................15

The search for a secure and highly available data centre.

For many organizations, the data centre is absolutely critical to day-to-day activities. But data centres come with their own unique challenges. Power has to be sourced cost-effectively and with an eye toward enviromental responsibility. And data centre technologies are evolving rapidly, often requiring expensive upgrades or replacements.

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Add to that the escalating costs of security, cooling, connectivity, management and maintenance, and it’s easy to understand why a growing number of businesses are deciding whether they should retrofit their existing data centres or switch to co-location or a more managed solution such as virtual data centre or cloud (infrastructure as a service or software as a service).

Bell has developed this guide to help you weigh the considerations and choose the way forward that’s best for your business.

Expansion on an exponential scaleOver the next decade, the number of virtual and physical servers worldwide will grow by a factor of 10, the amount of information managed by enterprise data centres will grow by a factor of 50 and the number of files the data centre will have to process will grow by a factor of 75. With all organizations having increasing amounts of data to manage, finding the right data centre solution is growing in importance.

Source: 2011 IDC

What do you expect from your data centre?

For most organizations, there are a handful of ‘non-negotiables’ when it comes to the performance of their data centres. Considering the ways you depend on your data, these may be among the top priorities for you:

Maintaining stable, secure power

Evolving technologies and changing service requirements affect power and cooling demands. Today’s energy costs are substantial, and tomorrow’s will be even more significant. According to a 2011 Forrester Research report, power costs will soon account for 70 to 80 percent of operational costs. Finding a way to control those costs is often a significant driver for organizations to move to hosted data centre solutions.

Ensuring redundancy and reliabilityMost data centres have backup options for power in case of outages – usually a battery-based uninterruptible power supply (UPS) and diesel generator. It is frequently telling for organizations to measure how often they have to upgrade those assets to ensure they’re in line with their data centres’ changing power requirements.

Keeping your data safe - and in Canada

Data can be used in powerful ways that transform businesses – but it can also add to an organization’s risk-management requirements. Privacy has to be protected. Confidential information must be safeguarded. Industry compliancy requirements and Canadian regulations must be met. You need to know if your data has to be stored on Canadian soil. As well, given the constant stream of new developments in IT and physical security, are you confident yourdata centre and systems are as secure as possible?

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Balancing growth and cost

Expand too much or too fast and you risk wasting resources. Limit growth and you risk handcuffing your business. Building brand-new facilities gives you flexibility to customize, making the most of options such as integrating outside air or deep-water cooling.

But the high cost of construction makes this a viable option for only the largest enterprises. It can also be difficult to find the right contractor and an appropriate location – somewhere secure, safe and with access to reliable, high-bandwidth connectivity. And operating costs often exceed initial capital investment over a facility’s lifespan.

Forrester Research estimates co-location is 37 percent less expensive than building your own data centre, based on costs over a 15-year period. That climbs to 52 percent less expensive when risk impact is factored in. (Forrester, ‘Build or Co-locate?’. 2013)

NOTE: Graphic from Forrester PPT also suggested for inclusion.

When making a decision, it is essential to thoroughly and realistically assess your organization’s long-term resources to sustain a data centre.

Managing the upgrade cycle

This is one of the biggest challenges for most companies operating their own data centres today. Technology is evolving faster, resulting in shorter upgrade cycles for firewalls, anti-virus solutions, operating systems, application patches and server configurations.

Staying on top of new developments and demands can be expensive. It can also involve risks beyond cost, such as disruptions to workflow, equipment damage and data loss during improper shutdowns.

As technology becomes more advanced, power density tends to increase, which means that even though devices are getting smaller, they’re using more energy. This has a domino effect: cooling and humidity requirements go up, for example, resulting in the need for more servers that need even more power.

All of this can increase costs. Over time, the unpredictability this introduces to an organization’s operating expenses can become increasingly complex to manage.

Is hosting an appropriate option for your organization?

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Moving to a hosted model can be an effective way of offsetting the challenges associated with operating and maintaining your own data centre. If the majority of the following statements seem valid to you, it may be worthwhile to consider hosting.

Are you looking to: Address increasing power and cooling requirements?

Maximize uptime, availability and redundancy?

Keep technology up to date?

Strengthen physical and data security?

Increase capacity while reducing power costs?

Optimize performance across all systems?

Re-focus resources on your core business offerings?

Improve the efficiency and effectiveness of IT resource management and support?

Create a predictable cost model?

Reduce operational complexity and risk?

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When you’re evaluating a provider’s facilities, you’ll need to take a close look at the data centre’s capabilities, strengths and potential weaknesses.

Key characteristics of a dependable data centre.

Evaluate your downtime tolerance

Tier 2 facilities offer 99.741% uptime, while Tier 3 data centres are committed to delivering 99.982% uptime. In hours, that amounts to about 22 hours of downtime a year for a Tier 2 facility and about 1.6 hours a year for a Tier 3 facility. Consider the various ways downtime can affect your business – in terms of revenue, customer experience or brand image – to determine your acceptable downtime threshold.

Here are some important questions to ask:

What tier ranking is the facility designed to meet?

Tier rankings describe the power redundancy safeguards in a data centre according to categories set by an industry body known as the Uptime Institute. Tier 1 facilities have little redundancy. Tier 2 centres have battery rooms that typically provide a few minutes of reserve power before switching to generators. Tier 3 data centres have N+1 configuration, with an additional generator beyond the required backup capacity. They can be maintained concurrently, meaning maintenance can be done without requiring equipment shutdowns. Tier 4 data centres provide 2N redundancy, although this is rarely required as the significant expense for Tier 4 design outweighs the minimal increase in potential uptime.

Will I be able to scale?As your business grows, you’ll need more space and scalable capacity. And your data centre should be able to adopt new technologies quickly. Cloud services and fully-managed virtualized environments offer many organizations an opportunity to enhance scalability and refocus key IT resources on revenue generating activities.

You may not need these services today, but having your data hosted is usually a long-term decision because moving is expensive and risky. So think beyond your initial contract term and make sure you have room to grow, and some allowance to meet your potential future needs.

What audit practices are performed?When you transfer your data and applications to a data centre, you’re also transferring compliance responsibilities. If you process consumer cardholder information, it’s critical to check for payment card industry (PCI) compliance.

Also look for providers who have completed CSAE 3416 and SSAE 16 standards. If you operate under Sarbanes-Oxley legislation in the U.S. you’ll want to look for providers who have completed audits such as the CICA 5970 Type II (Canadian equivalent of U.S. SAS 70 Type II). The frequency at which your provider recertifies is also important.

What security measures are in place?

As hosted data centres share multiple customers, they typically invest in advanced security features including 24 / 7 x 365 on-site guards, mantraps and biometric scanners. Network security is equally critical, so be sure your service provider offers intrusion detection, virtualized firewalls and load balancers, and the ability to monitor lines for traffic.

When you’re looking to protect your mission-critical applications and data, you’re only as strong as your weakest link. That means the security features of the data centre itself are just part of the picture. Find out how much control your potential provider has over the network that will be delivering your hosted data centre services. And ask about managed protection against distributed denial of service (DDoS) attacks, event management and any other security services essential to your business.

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What kind of power allocation model is being used?Service reliability depends on your provider’s ability to measure, monitor and allocate power usage. In an over-subscription power allocation model, a single reading is used for the entire data centre. Unused power from one customer can be resold to another and spikes in power demand from other customers can drain your resources. In extreme situations, this could bring down a customer’s environment.

In the power reservation model, you get the total capacity you’ve paid for, whether or not you use it. You’ll always have enough energy to run your systems, and close monitoring ensures the provider can quickly detect and respond to any increases in your demand. This prevents the situation where one customer has the ability to affect another customer’s environment.

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What green initiatives have been incorporated?Integrated sustainable energy technology is good both for your bottom line and the environment. Consider the provider’s green record, looking for advancements such as virtualized environments, use of free cooling solutions and heat exchangers. All of these can be reliable, cost-effective alternatives to traditional technologies.

Many service providers today aspire to improve their power usage effectiveness (PUE), an industry measure of energy efficiency. A service provider with good PUE will also help you keep your power costs down, today and into the future.

How are the facilities connected?The network linking a provider’s data centres is a critical component of their offering. Data centres typically process large volumes of traffic, and the network that connects the data centres – to each other and to your business – needs to sustain those volumes reliably and securely at all times.

The physical location of data centres is also important, as providers often deliberately space out their facilities to minimize the risk of a mass disruption. But many data centre applications are sensitive to latency (i.e., delay). The farther your data needs to travel, the more likely it is

that delay may become an issue – even in short-distance metropolitan networks. Satisfy yourself that the provider’s reach will deliver the network speed and quality you need.

Choosing a provider.

What kind of network does the provider operate?

To protect your data and applications from end to end, and to ensure you get the performance and reliability your business needs, you will want to choose a provider whose network supports the level of service you expect from the data centre itself.

In addition to the basic day-to-day connectivity required within the data centre and between the data centre and your organization, you also need to be confident the provider’s network can handle capacity spikes without increasing latency or risking downtime.

Beyond the characteristics of the data centre itself, you also want to be confident in your provider’s ability to meet your business needs. Here are some of the more important questions to ask when trying to determine if a particular solution suits your organization:

What kind of service-level agreements (SLAs) are offered?

An SLA that emphasizes uptime indicates a mature data centre service with confidence in its infrastructure. It’s also important to ensure that connectivity and the hosted service itself are both covered – so you can be assured not only that your data is being well maintained but also that you’ll be able to access it when you need to. And ideally, you want a single service provider to be accountable for both the hosting and connectivity SLAs to ensure operational efficiency and single accountability.

For maximum protection against downtime and outages, an agreement should include an hour-based percentage penalty for missed service levels.

Are professional services available to help me understand my options?

One size does not fit all. The right data centre provider will help assess your needs, current capabilities and future plans, and will work with you to find a solution that meets your unique business goals. A provider with a strong professional services organization to advise and support you in defining your needs can be an invaluable asset.

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Can services be scaled quickly and easily?Your needs will evolve – and not always in ways you can predict. Look for power and capacity that can be scaled quickly, giving you the energy, space and bandwidth you need to grow your business.

Does the provider offer virtual hosting and cloud solutions?Dedicating a server to each application – and configuring it to handle peak loads – can be extremely inefficient, often resulting in utilization rates of less than 25 percent. Moving your applications to a virtual server farm can help keep costs low and give you the advantage of architectural flexibility. Virtual solutions also scale up quickly and easily – without requiring you to invest in any hardware. Large-scale virtualization can also significantly reduce your organization’s carbon footprint. Look for a provider equipped with the latest virtual service offerings, such as Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS), which gives you complete control over your capacity and charges you only for the services you use.

Does the provider invest continually in infrastructure and cloud capabilities?One of the benefits of moving to a hosted data centre model is taking advantage of new technology. An ideal provider will constantly invest in upgrades and advances – for example, by integrating cloud capabilities or adopting the latest innovations in physical and data security.

Are costs predictable?Working with a data centre provider will give you access to a sophisticated infrastructure without incurring significant capital costs. Make sure the monthly costs associated with the hosted service are stable – and that as part of the offer you also get access to in-house technical expertise.

Be mindful of hidden costs

Organizations that operate data centres in-house often experience unpredictable costs due to unforeseen maintenance requirements – and are sometimes surprised to find their expenditures spiking every three to five years as equipment is replaced and refreshed.

Source: Forrester Research Inc. 2011

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Data centre solutions from Bell.

Our end-to-end solutions will help you meet your current needs and your future objectives, and our professional services can help you find the right option for your business.

Common features of all our data centre solutions include:

Guaranteed availabilityWe offer 24 / 7 availability and uptime backed by SLAs. Our data centres provide full redundancy as well as an uninterruptible power supply and generators – and our expert IT staff is available around the clock.

Controlled costsPredictable, fixed monthly fees help you plan ahead. You’ll minimizethe complexity and costs of regulatory compliance while maximizing the return on your technology investments – all at significantly less than the the cost of building or retrofitting your own data centre.

Leading network servicesBell provides direct, high-speed and fully scalable connections, giving you access to our world-class network services and data centre infrastructure.

Dependable powerOur highly stable, secure and fully redundant infrastructure gives you all the computing power you need – and the ability to scale upwards when your business grows.

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If you have decided a hosted data centre option may be right for your organization, Bell offers a number of options to meet your needs: Co-location, Virtual Data Centre, Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS), as well as hybrid, customized approaches. We recognize that different organizations have different requirements when it comes to data centre services.

All Bell data centres run on the power reservation model – contractually guaranteeing that you’ll have the power and cooling your applications require. Most of our data centres are designed to Tier 3 standards, ensuring high security and availability. And by hosting in one of our secure, national data centres, you can keep your data safe and in Canada.

Bell is committed to integrating Green IT best practices into its data centre operations across Canada. For example, Bell is the only telecommunications company in Canada that’s certified ISO 14001 for its environmental management system. This means that you can count on secure and energy-efficient management of your data when it is stored in one of Bell’s hosting centres.

Our most recent data centre is also equipped with a number of features to minimize environmental impact – including a rainwater harvesting system, a heat-reflective roof that reduces cooling requirements and lighting control systems that cut energy use.

Bell’s commitment to green initiatives.

Recognized for green leadership

Uptime Institute awarded the 2012 Green Enterprise IT Award to Bell and partner Urbacon Architecture for Facility Design Innovation. This award recognizes the cutting-edge design of Bell’s Ottawa Region data centre, with its focus on energy and resource efficiency and sustainable green building and development practices.

Source: Uptime Institute 2012

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Virtual Data Centre solutions from BellAn alternative to traditional server computing, Virtual Data Centre solutions from Bell let you store and run multiple applications in our virtual server farms, again with services that reach from the OS to the network. That means you can do more with less, by simplifying your IT infrastructure, reducing hardware requirements and lowering costs through increased energy efficiency.

Dependable, highly secure and fully scalable, our Virtual Data Centre solutions eliminate the costs associated with power management and physical maintenance and provide an extremely stable, highly secure and fully redundant architecture to meet your business needs.

Virtualizing efficiency

Physical servers typically run at less than 15% average utilization levels. Virtualization software can increase efficiency fourfold, reducing server needs by a quarter, and lowering hardware and energy costs by at least 50%.

Co-location Hosting from BellFlexible, scalable and secure, Co-location Hosting allows you to leverage our state-of-the-art data centre facilities to house all or part of your IT infrastructure. Install your equipment in one of our centres and our experts will monitor everything from power usage to cooling needs. It’s an ideal solution for businesses looking to upgrade their security and availability while reducing costs for power, space and cooling – all without retrofitting their in-house infrastructure or investing in a new data centre.

Infrastructure as a service (IaaS) from BellProviding self-serve access to cloud storage and computing capacity through a web-based portal, Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) from Bell lets you scale your IT infrastructure up and down rapidly as your requirements change. A pay-as-you-use service, IaaS from Bell connects you to the most advanced network technologies in Canada for improved end-to-end performance, security and reliability – while keeping your infrastructure safe, secure and in Canada.

You’ll transfer the responsibility of daily IT-related operations to our industry-leading experts while taking advantage of our redundant, secure and scalable data centre infrastructure. We’ll handle the management of all your server hardware, bandwidth requirements, backups, security and databases – everything up to and including the operating system (OS) layer. Our world-class infrastructure guarantees maximum availability and scalability – reducing operational risk and keeping your business up and running.

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Managed Disk BackupManaged Disk Backup from Bell1 provides flexible, scalable data protection and disaster recovery for your mission-critical applications. Disk-based backup is faster and more reliable than traditional tape or optical media, helping you reduce backup windows and system downtime. So whether you’re backing up a single file or an entire system, your data can be recovered quickly and reliably. For added resilience, Bell offers remote backup services between select Bell data centres over our extensive network.

Professional servicesBell certified information and communications technology experts can help you assess your needs and plan and execute your move to a data centre solution – or transition your applications and data to a virtual data centre. We implement the right strategy for your organization, building in the technologies and solutions best suited for your future plans, and help you achieve your business goals with everything from virtualization to consolidation to relocation.

The Bell professional services team can support you at every stage of data centre design, development, deployment and operation. Our offerings include:

Health check and assessment Providing a snapshot of your current IT infrastructure so you can make better-informed decisions, benefitting from a thorough analysis of your existing needs and appropriate solutions.

Business strategy planning Articulating a clear vision and comprehensive roadmap to meet your future business needs, including implementation plans developed according to industry best practices to meet your specific resource and business goals.

People and process services

Reviewing and strengthening your desktop and data centre management policies, procedures and skills.

Technology integration services

Easing your integration into a hosted data centre environment, drawing on best-in-class technologies and our years of experience managing nationally deployed data centres.

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1 Managed Disk Backup is an optional service, and is not available in all Bell data centres. Please

contact your Bell representative for more information on the availability of this service in your area

About Bell.

Businesses that demand secure, reliable, high performance data centres choose Bell. We have the infrastructure and experience to help organizations of all types cost-effectively host, manage and protect their mission-critical data and applications.

We offer the widest range of cloud and hosting services in Canada, operating from geographically diverse and highly redundant data centres and connecting you to Canada’s largest fibre optic network. Together with our partner Q9 Networks, we offer unparalleled reach, capacity and scalability backed by exceptional security, reliability and support. We have a combined operational capacity to support more than 30 megawatts of critical customer load. Our large, expandable data centres meet the largest customer requirements to accommodate your business growth – without having to change facilities or service providers.

Learn more:

• Take a virtual tour of a Bell data centre • Book a live tour of a Bell data centre • Visit our website

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