In today’s world, a company’s data and information needs to be always-on and always-available. But this requires more than just careful planning and monitoring. This “always-on” business imperative adds additional pressure on cloud providers and data centers to provide the service and reliability needed to support a world that runs 24/7, 365 days a year.
Just look at the headlines made by Delta recently, when – thanks to an electrical equipment failure – the company suffered a power outage in its Atlanta headquarters, stranding tens of thousands of Delta passengers around the world with cancelled flights. When the outage first hit, the airline grounded more than 1,000 flights and delayed another 3,000 out of the typical 6,000 flights the airline operates on a summertime day. Delta flights weren’t able to resume to a normal schedule for about a week, frustrating passengers who count on the airline for its reliable service.
Delta’s outage could have happened to anyone, and it’s a friendly reminder of why uptime should be a top concern when selecting your data center provider. Outages can impact the accuracy of data collection, halt the delivery of services and goods, and make it difficult (or impossible) to share information with your customers. This is especially harmful if the information is critical (not unlike updates to flight itinerary.) Here’s another example – if a hospital suffers an outage during a patient’s visit to the emergency room, a doctor may not be able to view the patient’s medical history, which could impact the quality of service, and even the patient’s life.
Without a guarantee of continued availability, it becomes impossible for an organization to be successful. Your customers not only expect 100 percent uptime – they demand it. So it’s critical that you select a partner that can handle the needs of your business and keep you up and running, while also providing room for growth and expansion. This means taking the time to ask tough questions, such as are they confident in their abilities? What is their outage history (if any) and examples of what they’d do to keep you running? What are their redundancy and disaster recovery plans? Are they monitoring activity 24/7/365? How quickly can you get in touch with someone if there’s a problem?
Here at Markley Group, we understand that the businesses and consumers of tomorrow will continue to expect that everything is on, all the time, without delay. To learn more about how our colocation and cloud services can help you stay connected 100 percent of the time, please reach out to info@markleygroup.com.
