Key Elements of a Data

Center Operations Review

and Due Diligence Process
The decision to host your business-critical applications in a managed service
provider data center can lower your costs and give your organization access to a
secure, scalable, and highly available infrastructure. It can also free up internal IT
staff to work on strategic projects, rather than application and systems monitoring
and management.
But all data centers do not
have equal capabilities.
When you decide to outsource
part or all of your IT landscape,
you need to perform due
diligence to ensure that data
center capabilities meet accepted
industry best practice and your
business needs.
While there is no official
certification authority, how
data centers are evaluated are
often benchmarked against
guidelines like those of the Uptime Institutes and ANSI/TIA standards, two of the
commonly known entities that rank data centers according to their infrastructure
and operational components. Although these standards are a great reference point,
they are by no means an exhaustive guide, since technology advances sometimes
outpace standards.
ExEcuti vE Bri Ef
Data Center
Evaluation Checklist
Secure-24 is a
leading provider of
managed IT
operations, hosting
and cloud services,
providing highly
available
IT environments and
expert management
and support for your
business.
26955 Northwestern Highway, Southfield, MI 48033
Phone: 800-332-0076 info@secure-24.com
www.secure-24.com
IT Innovation. Business Value.
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Data Center
Evaluation Checklist
Physical Facilities
The first criteria for judging a data center is the location itself the location
should be in a region with a low incidence of natural disasters, with no history
of flooding, seismic activity, hurricanes, and such. Locations should also
be chosen to maximize security and access to services and utilities, while
minimizing risks like vibration, crime, industrial pollution, high traffic, and fire.
Second is the structure of the building the physical components of building
construction and features like floor design need to be validated against
accepted data center construction standards. The buildings systems
electrical, mechanical, fire suppression also need to be assessed and
validated. Finally, the facility must have redundancy built into all systems.
PHySIcAL FAcILITIeS evALUATor NoTeS
Location
Building Structure
electrical Systems
Mechanical Systems
environmental Management Systems
Floor Space & cabling
Physical Security & Monitoring Systems
Telephone Systems
Fire Suppression & Safety Systems
Skilled Workforce Availability
1
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oPerATIoNAL eFFecTIveNeSS evALUATor NoTeS
Business Stability
organization & Mission
Training
Daily operations & Shift Management
Asset Management
Library & Support Management
contact Administration
2
Data Center
Evaluation Checklist
coNT I NUeD
Operational Effectiveness
In addition to assessing the physical facilities of the data center,
the operations of the entity running the data center must be reviewed to
ensure a high level of operational effectiveness and stability. The entity should
have a proven track record of financial viability as well as an established
customer base.
Further, their business practices need to be run in accordance with processes
and procedures that are documented, disseminated, and regularly updated to
reflect organizational as well as infrastructure changes.
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SySTeMS MANAgeMeNT eFFecTIveNeSS evALUATor NoTeS
Service Levels & Uptimes
Downtime Scheduling & Processes
computer & configuration resource Mgmt
Problem Management
System Administration & Task Management
Systems operation Security
change Management
Non-Disaster recovery & Backup/recovery
3
Data Center
Evaluation Checklist
coNT I NUeD
Systems Management Effectiveness
Data center infrastructure components must be supported by system
management policies and procedures that were designed and implemented
to ensure optimal performance. For effective operations, the services that
support the data center such as the problem incident reporting system and
change management must be defined, documented and integrated into data
center operations.
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DISASTer recovery PLANNINg evALUATor NoTeS
Business continuation Planning & evaluation
recovery Site Analysis
Disaster recovery Plan
operational readiness
4
Data Center
Evaluation Checklist
coNT I NUeD
Disaster Recovery Planning
Data centers must have a thorough, well documented and tested disaster
recovery plan to guarantee minimal downtime and to ensure that SLA times
are met. Disaster recovery Plans are designed to recover the applications,
data, and physical network within established critical timeframes and
to minimize the impact of a disaster on the business. The data centers
Disaster recovery Plans should be assessed to ensure that they meet the
requirements defined in SLAs and other performance timeframe requirements.
The preceding four checklists provided the high-level attributes
that need to be assessed as part of data center due diligence.
For more detail about the individual attributes, refer to the
standards developed by the Disaster Recovery Institute
or contact Secure-24 at 800-332-0076.
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Secure-24 Next Generation Data Centers
To provide the most flexible platform for innovative IT service delivery, Secure-24
services are delivered from our next generation, award winning data centers.
Data centers built with leading technology and specifically designed to meet your
enterprise requirements intelligent, scalable, sustainable and secure.
Multiple data centers that act interchangeably.
Secure-24 employs a multi data center strategy for enhanced business
continuity. Data centers that are interconnected with a high availability self-
healing SoNeT ring work interchangeably so one data center can act as backup
recovery/ failover for another to create an integrated disaster recovery solution.
Agile platform to grow.
From global enterprises to government and industry, a focal point of every
successful IT infrastructure lies in the data center. Secure-24 managed services
data centers provide a foundation for true transformation and the agility to
respond quickly, reliably and effectively to todaysand tomorrowschanging
business requirements.
Whether youre looking for risk mitigation, disaster recovery solutions, or just to
alleviate some of your IT hosting burdens, Secure-24 can provide a customized
solution to meet your needs. call us today to discuss how we can help your
company, or schedule a tour of our data centers.
Secure-24 is committed to helping your organization succeed by bringing
the best innovations and technology to your IT needs. Thats why we have
developed strategic relationships with market-leading business and technology
companies and emerging players. Working closely with our network of
alliance partners strengthens our ability to deliver genuine business value to
the enterprise and help clients make the most of their IT investments.
To learn more about how
outsourcing your applications and
infrastructure to Secure-24 can
help your organization achieve its
business goals, contact us at:
Secure-24
26955 Northwestern Highway
Southfield, MI 48033
www.secure-24.com
Local: 248.784.1021
Toll-Free: 800.332.0076
Fax: 248.784.1024
Info: info@secure-24.com
Sales: sales@secure-24.com
Hr: Hr@secure-24.com