Data centre carrier neutrality: Six things you need to know

To ensure that organisations can truly leverage the benefits of carrier neutrality, it’s vital that it is fully understood and that both providers and customers are working from the same definition. The following six points provide you with everything you need to know about data centre carrier neutrality.

1. Choose quality over quantity

Many data centre providers claim to have a vast number of carriers or network providers available within their data centres, but are these all carriers? A provider might claim to have over a hundred, but in reality these are often service providers using the same fibre for access. The majority of businesses will look for at least two separate and distinct carriers for diversity, so before rushing into any decisions, ask yourself: how many do you actually need to support your business requirements?

It’s important to understand that service providers utilise infrastructure they do not own to deliver service diversity to any given site. So it’s key to ask about pure carrier diversity too. Carriers provide the telecommunication network or connection in and out of the data centre. Service providers use this network to provide a telecommunication service.

2. Think about diversity

It’s also important to consider the diversity of the infrastructure. A data centre provider may have access to multiple carriers, but this could be provided via one single entry point or connection. It is fundamental to understand that if there is only one single point of entry there is a single point of failure, meaning there is no resiliency. If anything were to happen to this connection, then access to all carriers would be lost, so it’s sensible to look for a data centre provider that provides diverse entry points and allows carriers to bring their own infrastructure to the site. This is also the case when only one or two carriers are used to support others.

3. Look for future flexibility

Be sure to consider your long-term business goals as well as the short term. You might need just two carriers now, but will your requirements, be the same in three years’ time? You may want to change to a different carrier, or perhaps bring in new services. What you need is a data centre provider that will meet not just your current requirements, but provide the flexibility to meet your future requirements too. So, rather than making a quick decision that you have to live with for the next five to ten years, make sure your provider can future proof your communications strategy, with the options to review your choice and number of carriers.

4. Don’t take everything at face value

Feel free to question what you are told. Take the time for due diligence on the site, whether that’s looking at the power and security or even asking for fibre maps. Also don’t forget to make sure that the commercials support the infrastructure requirements. So you might have multiple carrier options, but does your contract allow you to benefit from this? You want the ability to switch between services to help drive down prices. However, it’s small factors like this that could easily be overlooked.

5. Consider the cloud

Make sure that the data centre provider you consider also offers diversity and neutrality in the cloud. As well as a safe place for companies to house their infrastructure and technology platforms, data centres can provide a connection to cloud ecosystems. You may already be operating in the cloud, or be considering a move to shared storage. A data centre provider that can provide you with multiple cloud services provides you with options. These include a possible mitigation strategy for data that cannot always travel across international borders, risk reduction and finally flexibility to meet constantly changing business requirements.

6. Carriers and colocation providers can be one of the same

Some colocation providers will own their own network, with expertise in both data centre strategy and network provision. So it’s important not to overlook or underestimate the value of this experience. Providing direct, fast and secure private networks, alongside the ability for back up and migration to other on net data centres providers with their own networks can offer solutions to enhance your IT resiliency.

Historically, it’s perceived that these providers only offer single carrier solutions, but this is not the case. These data centres will also offer access to other carriers ensuring neutrality and the associated benefits can be enjoyed by customers.

The data centre has become the most critical business asset. Today almost every activity within the business depends on it, so businesses should not make any rash decisions when choosing a data centre provider. By evaluating the five considerations above, you can be confident that your strategy that not only meets your carrier neutrality requirements, but will support your business not just now, but long into the future.