In order to be in the competition these data centers invest heavily in infrastructure so that they can provide customers with best services. Internet is now an important part of nearly every business on earth. Without internet it is hard to imagine, many business in the world. There is hardly ever a business without a website that means millions of websites daily.

Other than business websites there are millions of other personal sites present on internet. So with internet being used for every business on earth, more and more hosting solutions are coming into light. As the internet usage is growing mostly individual servers are sold because basic hosting cannot handle the weight of the traffic. This one reason is enough to make colocation famous in the world of internet.

Whole infrastructure of a data center is shared between all of its clients and the costs are distributed, in simple words it makes service cheaper for the clients. Colocation includes everything that is needed for a best quality hosting in one place. There are many clients who don’t want to rent a server but instead buy a server, it is not possible to built whole data center only for a server.

Colocation is the solution for all such clients. Another advantages associated with colocation is support, these days all support is provided by the hosting providers. Previously all maintenance have to be done from clients end. Colocation servers which are completely managed by the server providers falls under the category of managed colocation hosting. Those clients who are not technical expert enjoy managed colocation services. These makes colocation more flexible than ever.

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Quantity of these kind of companies is growing on an exponential rate. There are many companies sometime called as wholesale data center facility operators. All such data center facilities include all the modern day data center qualities like raised floor space, HVAC cooling, excellent power supply and security. In order to make the colocaion services more flexible these kind of organizations offer customized data center management, construction and designs.

Some of them promote themselves through colocation services. Leasing data center is getting famous because most of the companies want to avoid the capital investment required to build the whole infrastructure. Craze of data center space which boomed in the era of dot com bubble is filled up recently. Now anyone who wants new space has to consider third party operator.

Financial executives mostly fund in those data center investments which reduce operating cost like automation and virtualization. Some other organization which are looking in the future are investing in Cloud Infrastructure. In last 12 months dapce footprint has grown up to 15 million from 13 million square feet.

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Cloud Computing being a bit more economical then other hosting services so it will be more loved in developing countries and Data Centers Services India will try to bring Cloud Servers in their specifications as soon as possible. So lets understand the Total Cost Ownership on Cloud Computing. TCO for a data center is different from TCO for Cloud since Cloud is completely different from other services offered by data centers.

When you are running your business on some external cloud it is better to calculate the TCO required to run your business in external cloud as compared to the whole infrastructure. If the data center is insufficiently utilized then you will loss a lot of money. Mainly losses will be in Operation Exchange ( support staff, power, energy e.t.c.) and Capital Exchange (hardware requirements of the servers).

Compare Infrastructure with Cloud Costs

How do you face the situation of over or under utilization? What costs are associated in running unoccupied server? What are the possible risks associated with over utilization? The question of over utilization is tricky as one side each company want to grow their business and sell as much as they can thus increasing utilization. But on the other side it is believed to be a good option to save some capacity for your future developments or in any urgent situation.

If you have many colocation servers then this situation gets more complex. This situation cannot be measured in rupees or in any other currency as it depends on the costs and risk implicated in the case your service goes down.

Calculate the TCO for the whole infrastructure or for the part of your business which you are planning to be hosted on cloud. One you calculate TCO for your data center then only you can transform your business into utility computing model, which further can be compared to typical cloud services.

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Large amount of money is needed for professional consultants and services.

This is one of the common disbelief about automation in data center that you need a large staff of experts and various types of services to start automation in data center services. With a commonly available automation tool your technical staff can easily start the automation progress and within few days can start production. This as simple as it looks you don’t need long scripts, coding, or any kind of special development.

Automation will result in job loss of many employees

There is no need of evaluating whether your staff is talented enough to handle all the projects you have. IT staff is not removed by automation, instead it frees the staff from some of the important repetitive tasks. Once free from such tasks they can concentrate on other important and logical working processes which will be helpful in development of business.

Automation will increase complexity

Automation is not for increasing complexity but it eased down many processes. Another common misconception about data centers india automation is that it is not for all the processes. Automation offer flexibility and it can automate whole process or few steps within a process, whichever suits you better. Also in both the ways you can add checkpoints at suitable intervals to make it more simple.

Automation will change everything

Automation works in such a process that it will increase productivity and won’t change your process significantly. A successful automation tool will help you to automate and arrange all your existing process taking care of the operational measures which are followed in your company.

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High Speed Internet  Required -  Cloud Computing’s performance in slow speed internet connections is absurd. Slow connections like dial-up make is Cloud computing  a pain for the user or it can be say it is impossible for the users to enjoy cloud computing on slow connections. Large documents and web-base applications need a lot of bandwidth to download. Is you are using a low speed internet connection then you may feel Cloud Computing will take more than a lifetime to be operational on that type of connection. In simple words Cloud Computing is not for slow connections.

Constant Internet Connection - Cloud Computing without proper internet connection is just like lifeless body. Because you are using internet for accessing both your documents and applications, in case if you don’t have an internet connection you can’t even access your documents. Departed internet connection means no work on the cloud computing and areas where internet connections are slow and are unreliable it can affect your business. Cloud Computing simply stops working without internet connection.

Limited Features - today many web-based applications are not fully featured when compared to their desktop versions. Just for an example there are n-number of things which can be done using Microsoft PowerPoint with the help of Google Presentation’s web based feature. Basics of using Microsoft PowerPoint on Cloud Computing are same but it lacks many of the advanced features of PowerPoint. If you are specially fond of power features, you will not look at cloud computing.

Data Stored is not secure - All the data in Cloud Computing is stored on Cloud. Its your duty to make sure how secure Cloud is? Whether only authorized persons are slowed to access to your confidential data. Concept of cloud computing is new and even if hosting companies say that the data is secured it can’t be a 100% truth. If you will see theoretically data on cloud computing is unsafe as it is replicated along multiple machines. In any case if your data goes missing you don’t have any chance of local or physical backup. Simply depending on cloud can let you down and there is always a risk of failure. In order to save the data only solution is downloading all cloud documents on your machines. However this is a lengthy process and every time your documents upgrades you will have to download a new copy of the application.

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Organizations are now asked to check all the operations in a Data Center are working correctly, also all the equipments are secure. Not just the equipments and applications but technologies, people and policies should also be kept under the eye of organization which are required to keep the Data Center active and functioning.

Based on the expert views there are few points or steps which if followed can secure your data center against all the malicious attacks and also make it  more active then ever. Here are the steps:

Set Up a Secure Zone for Network

Once the physical security level is installed the real hard work of securing network  starts. Securing network systems begins with development area followed by test subnet which is separated from the traffic of the development area. Production which is the third area is considered as the most boring area and most of the efforts and time of system administrators is wasted in this area.

Since this zone works on approved production equipments administrators are asked to imply new systems to control production network. Administrators can organize virtual or physical systems to the sub-networks which are attached to the virtual area network. Other than that strict rules related to outgoing and incoming traffic are also deployed.

Before applying rules managers of Data Center should find out the different requirements of the different business which are handled by sub-networks. For example traffic related with production should be restricted to irrelevant websites and other services like e-mail should use ports with outgoing links.

Wireless access points should be avoided in Data Center because even with two factor authentication and wide working radius they are difficult to control. In the security of Data Center there are three steps to be followed, first one is operational framework is ensures global information grid is available which should have integrity and protection. Technical protection is second and third and last is certification and accreditation of applications to be used in data center.

Physical Access should be Secure

Each layer and system in your data center is important, secure access to every room of your Data center. It is seen that commonly data center managers start with other complex tasks like controlling access to systems and mostly forget the physical security measures and concentrate on network side. In a perfect security systems, measures should be taken at every point of the Data Center.

Physical security for a Data Center includes ID cards, fenced campus, bio-metrics system and video surveillance, specially for the outer entrances of the Data Center. Inner Layers doesn’t need all security measures mentioned above and two important security measures should be taken care of are video surveillance and biometrics. One more important type of access to the inner parts of the Data Center is proper locking on the server. This is done to avoid any accidental error which can be caused by any wrong person working on the servers.

Organize Communication among security devices in Data Center

Cloud Computing and Colocation services has changed nearly every style of working in web world, security is also included. Most important thing in cloud computing is securing the data that is flowing between client systems, virtual machines within the data center and also between two data centers. In order to secure everything something more than port protocols is required like application identification technology.

Application identification technology apply signatures which helps in determining which application is peer to peer program or a shareware program. Application denial of service attacks should also be included in your security measures. Traditionally denial of service of attacks was programmed to fight of attack by using the “black hole” technique.

Drawback of this technique was that administrators have to remove all the traffic from the server that is under attack. Nowadays there are other solutions available which helps in determining which traffic is legal and which is illegal.

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Redundant Systems
Systems used in colocation servers hould be redundant and at every point of working they should have proper capacity. Many people get confused with multiple units considering them as redundancy. Ideal configuration for systems used in colocation facilities should be n+1, which means that if there are two units they should run at 50% capacity, and in any case if one fails other will handle the load. Same if there are three units working capacity should be 66%.

Best Connectivity

Major points which decides the Internet Connectivity of a colocation services are as follows:

• Total Bandwidth available for usage
• Accessible Internet backbones
• Uptime guarantee
• Packet loss, jitter and Latency

Carrier-neutral access and Tier -1 carriers, tier-2 carriers all get access to internet using Colocation data centers. Carrier-neutral can be used by any service from any carrier but customers are requested to configure their own routing. Also customers are should maintain their own connections to Internet backbones. Tier-1 is used by Internet giants like AT&T for direct access. Tier-2 is used for routing traffic amongst the multiple Tier-1 providers. In these kind of tiers speed and reliability depends on how effectively traffic is routed. Tier-2 is preferred by most of the clients since routing is configured by the Colocation facility. Also it is more reliable because of the presence of backbones, these backbones network performance and uptime.

Control on Climate

Design of the Colocation Services India itself affects the performance of the systems used in the colocation facility. Air flow between rack rows should be controlled by the server rooms. Hot air generated due to the heat produced by the servers should be blown in one direction and cool air to keep the servers cool should exit from another direction. Only dedicated hot and cols air flow can save the servers from overheating and finally burning down. Cold sir and humidity is controlled by correctly sized and redundant climate control units. As we all know climate requirements for the server are strict and they only work properly when they are installed under suitable working environment. Servers need 50% humidity and 70 degrees of temperature. Both CRAC units and chillers for the server rooms should be included in a Colocation facility. Cooling capacity is calculated by total tonnage by the square footage.

Power Required

Power to the colocation is like oxygen to the humans, if it fails to perform then you are in deep trouble. UPS and generators should be used for backup and they are necessary to keep the network online. UPS are used when power is shifted from regular to the generators. Generators should be there 24X7 for immediate backup power. Power system of a colocation facility should be properly working and should have following features for perfection:

• Redundant and multiple UPS because of the reason UPS fails very oftenly.
• Generator which can handle at least 1.5 time the total building load

Equal Distribution of Traffic

Both hardware and logic of distribution has an important effect on connectivity. The way traffic is divided plays an important role in the performance of routing. If your distribution covers three below given points than it is perfect:

• In order to continually adjusting routes to find the most effective one Performance based distribution is should be used. Performance based concentrates on performance rather then price.

• Switches and routers should be redundant and be working on full working for the customers.

• Distributions should be done between more than 4-5 clients.

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• Improve physical space in Data center and also reduce server sprawl.
• Hardware maintenance cost is reduced since number of physical servers are  also reduced.
• Speed up the network thus making provision for new services.
• Performance and resource utilization is improved.
• Applications are quickly developed and organized and downtime is avoided due to maintenance windows.
• Flawlessly mange and scale the infrastructure based on various industrial demands.

There are many software which helps in organizing server virtualization. Some of the most famous and most conveniently applied virtualization servers are:

Windows Virtual Server

Windows virtual server is loved by those who only want to have Microsoft type of environment, using Windows XP or Windows Server 2003 operating systems. There are two versions provided by Microsoft for its Windows Virtual Server 2005 Standard and Enterprise Edition. Enterprise Edition supports can host a server with as much as 32 processors. Standard on the other hand support server with only 4 processors. The enterprise edition can be downloaded free of charge.

XenSource

It is launched almost three years ago. XenSource is based on a open source project sponsored by Linux and known as Xen. It is a good option for those who like open source products then proprietary ones. XenSource proved itself in cost effectiveness but it still has to prove itself in quality service.

VMWare

It is the leading software of the virtualization process. Launched in 1998 it was VMWare which bought virtualization to the mainstream through  X86 computing platform. There are option for everyone from small to big business and at the wide range of price points. Features of VMWare are never ending and it benefit’s the host for every server environment.

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Whenever IT always need to add capabilities or increase capacity without investing in a new infrastructure, licensing new software, or training new staff first word that came to your mind is Cloud Computing. Any subscription based or pay-per-use service over the Internet is included in Cloud Computing, it helps in extending IT limits. You may have come across various analysts, IT customers and vendors talking cloud hosting and its features. Based on the various discussions here is in rough what really means:

Utility Computing

A comparatively new but well acquired form of Cloud Computing. It is major support is from industry giants like Sun, IBM and Amazon.com, and various others who are offering virtual and storage servers which can be accessed by clients on demand. Newbie’s use Cloud Computing for non-mission critical, supplemental needs but it will be soon be replaced parts of data center. Other providers are offering solutions that will help in creating virtual data centers from commodity servers. These virtualized servers enable users to stitch up storage, I/O computational capacity and memory.

SaaS (Software as a Service)

In this kind of Cloud Computing a single application is delivered through browsers to thousands of customers using a multi tenant architecture. From the customers point iof view it means no extra investment in software of server licensing. From the vendors side only a single application to maintain and costs are way low as compared to conventional hosting.

Web Services in Cloud Computing

This is closed related to SaaS and Web service providers offers APIs. These APIs in place of delivering full-blown applications allows developers to develop functionality over the Internet. Full range of APIs offered are ADP payroll, Google Maps, Bloomberg, U.S. Postal Service and may other credit card processing companies. Small time API vendors include Xignite and Strike Iron.

Platform as a service

This is another variation of SaaS, it delivers development environments as a service. Application is build by you which will run on the provider’s infrastructure and later delivered to your users through Internet from the server of the provider. These services do not offer you complete freedom as they are controlled from vendors end, but instead they offer pre-integration and inevitability.

Managed Service Providers (MSP)

This is one of the oldest form of cloud computing. Managed service is basically an application which is directly exposed to IT Companies instead of end users. Best example is application monitoring service or virus scanning service for e-mail. Some of the most famous managed security services are delivered by IBM, SecureWorks and Verizon. Other famous offering include CenterBeam’s and Everdream’s desktop management services.

Commerce Platform Services

This is a hybrid of SaaS and MSP. Its basically work is to provide service hub that can be used by users to interact with each other. Most commonly they are used in trading business like expense management system that allows users to order secretarial services or travel from common platform and then organizing the service delivery and pricing inside the specifications set by the user. You can also call it as automated service bureau.

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