Power costs in the UK are on the rise, you don't need to be told that. Everyone is feeling the pinch, none more so than the Data Centre industry. Businesses are tightening their belts and reducing staff levels in order to cut costs and stay in business. Data Centre and Computer Room managers are constantly trying to increase efficiency and reduce costs so that they can be competitive in a growing market.
The Invest in Iceland Agency appear to have the answer to everyone's problems. Cheap green power, multi feed connectivity, low building costs and a skilled workforce. It appears to be a no brainer! Power in Iceland costs around 2.1p kW/h for heavy industry where the cheapest rates in the United States are 3.1p and 10.2p in the UK. One of the biggest drains of power in Data Centres is cooling using around 40% of the total power. Fresh air cooling in Iceland solves this problem with the annual temperature not rising above 13ºC.
So why is everyone not building Data Centres in Iceland? There is a misconception that latency to Iceland is a hurdle that companies cannot afford to jump. In reality, latency from London to Iceland is half that of London to New York. A more worrying problem is the geomorphology of Iceland. Iceland is geologically, a very young island which has, depending on sources, 18-22 active volcanoes. This would pose a large threat to Data Centres across the island, although the nearest is over 50 miles from the capital, Reykjavik. Earthquakes could also be considered a major problem with Iceland, although they have only recorded 2 major tremors in the past 10 years, compared with Japan which has had more than 10 in the same period. Also, what happens if one of your servers breaks down? Iceland is 2½ hours flight away, not including travelling to and from the airports and getting through security.
So should you relocate to Iceland? It will vary between businesses whether the cost savings are worth the amount of potential downtime from natural events, but if you can, it could be a perfect location for you.
Migration Solutions are a Data Centre consultancy who specialise in Computer Room and Data Centre migration. For more information visit www.migrationsolutions.com or call 0845 251 2255
Showing posts with label iceland. Show all posts
Showing posts with label iceland. Show all posts
Wednesday, 14 October 2009
Tuesday, 5 May 2009
Choosing a Co-Lo
Does your co-lo match your needs? Do you know what your needs are? Do you know what is best for your data?
When choosing a facility to host your IT equipment, be it one 1U server or 30 racks of high density storage, it is crucial to choose a data centre that matches your requirements. There are so many companies out there offering services that appear very similar, but are very different once you scratch the surface.
Do you need access to your server? So many people host their servers in the centre of London or in the surrounding area, paying a premium to be close to their server(s). Could you host your server in Iceland for example and take advantage of cheaper power and cooling costs - would latency be an issue? If you went down this route, would you have the confidence to know that you are getting a service that you have never seen or to do the research to get the level of hosting that is closest to your requirements?
When talking about facility location, do you consider its security implications? Major towns and cities suffer from increased security risks from accidental outages from non-related infrastructure maintenance and potential terrorist attacks (not just to the facility but near-by). From a power point of view, brown-outs and power cuts are becoming a greater problem in major cities as the present supply is stretched with our increasing demands.
How redundant are the co-location facilities? Do they have multiple data (telecoms) and power feeds, on-site generators, N+1, N+2, N+N equipment duplication? If they claim that they have redundancy in their water-cooled air conditioning, does this extend to the pipes, water pumps and water tanks?
The question that you need to ask is "What are you paying for?". When you want 5kW of equipment in 1 rack, do they charge you for 3 racks because they only have power provision for 2kW per rack? If they charge you for 3, is your equipment spread between 3 racks or put in one, and is there a cooling implication linked with this?
There are so many questions that you need to ask when hosting your equipment, and it can be a very daunting process whether you know data centres inside and out or have no experience in them at all. Migration Solutions are data centre consultants that specialise in performing due-diligence on behalf of their clients to ensure they have the best fitting, best priced solution based on their specific needs. Extensive experience in data centre design and operation allow Migration Solutions to help you get exactly what you want and what you need first time, minimising the stress of the selection process. For more information or to find out how they can help you visit www.migrationsolutions.com or call now on 0845 251 2255
When choosing a facility to host your IT equipment, be it one 1U server or 30 racks of high density storage, it is crucial to choose a data centre that matches your requirements. There are so many companies out there offering services that appear very similar, but are very different once you scratch the surface.
Do you need access to your server? So many people host their servers in the centre of London or in the surrounding area, paying a premium to be close to their server(s). Could you host your server in Iceland for example and take advantage of cheaper power and cooling costs - would latency be an issue? If you went down this route, would you have the confidence to know that you are getting a service that you have never seen or to do the research to get the level of hosting that is closest to your requirements?
When talking about facility location, do you consider its security implications? Major towns and cities suffer from increased security risks from accidental outages from non-related infrastructure maintenance and potential terrorist attacks (not just to the facility but near-by). From a power point of view, brown-outs and power cuts are becoming a greater problem in major cities as the present supply is stretched with our increasing demands.
How redundant are the co-location facilities? Do they have multiple data (telecoms) and power feeds, on-site generators, N+1, N+2, N+N equipment duplication? If they claim that they have redundancy in their water-cooled air conditioning, does this extend to the pipes, water pumps and water tanks?
The question that you need to ask is "What are you paying for?". When you want 5kW of equipment in 1 rack, do they charge you for 3 racks because they only have power provision for 2kW per rack? If they charge you for 3, is your equipment spread between 3 racks or put in one, and is there a cooling implication linked with this?
There are so many questions that you need to ask when hosting your equipment, and it can be a very daunting process whether you know data centres inside and out or have no experience in them at all. Migration Solutions are data centre consultants that specialise in performing due-diligence on behalf of their clients to ensure they have the best fitting, best priced solution based on their specific needs. Extensive experience in data centre design and operation allow Migration Solutions to help you get exactly what you want and what you need first time, minimising the stress of the selection process. For more information or to find out how they can help you visit www.migrationsolutions.com or call now on 0845 251 2255
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