What is a Managed Data Center?
Data centers are like a brain. They store documents, power computer systems, and manage vital company processes. And for generations of business leaders, the onsite data center was the go-to method of ensuring your company had access to everything it needed to be successful.
But
we’re living through a digital transformation. More employees work from home, and digital advertising is replacing traditional outlets. And functions once handled by humans are now under the control of software automation.
Powering that transformation is cloud computing, and a significant portion of cloud computing relies on advanced data centers that are out of reach for most organizations.
The solution? Managed data centers, also known as colocation. These data centers are third-party managed facilities that provide up-to-date IT infrastructure that powers
cloud-based software, platforms, and desktops.
A managed data center provides businesses with countless benefits, like cost savings, comprehensive security, and reduced downtime. Additionally, managed service providers should give standard features that make it resilient, flexible, and practical.
What are the Benefits of a Managed Data Center?
It’s scary to hand over control of anything in business. That includes data centers, even if it’s clear that the costs and maintenance drain precious resources. In order to ease the decision to transition away from traditional onsite data centers, providers highlight the benefits of data center-managed services. These benefits include:
- Regular backups and redundancies – To eradicate the fear of lost company data, data center service providers, like Summit Hosting, employ power and cooling redundancies in addition to nightly backups. Summit’s dedicated servers add an additional layer of contingency in that if a server fails, another server steps in and ensures business continues to run.
- Unrivaled security – Security involves both cybersecurity and physical security. Human guards protect physical server components with badged access and activity monitoring. And digital security consists of a host of technologies, like SentinelOne, TruGrid, and Guardicore. Summit pounces on threats using these technologies along with updates and patching that automatically pushes security updates to your dedicated server.
- Unlimited scalability – Cloud services allow businesses to expand at a moment’s notice without massive investments in IT infrastructure. You can purchase more storage, computing power, or other IT services on-demand, providing flexibility that’s not possible with an on-premises data center. Summit Hosting factors in future growth, meaning you’ll never outgrow our services!
- Comprehensive support – Data center infrastructure management demands specialized know-how, and even small changes can cause devastating results. Summit provides 24/7 security monitoring and human support, so if you encounter a challenge, you get answers, not automated help desk bots.
- Affordable pricing – Managed data center services are far more affordable than onsite solutions. A public cloud solution, like Summit Hosting, operates on a pay-as-you-go system that prices services based on needs. You no longer need enormous investments for potential future growth, only pay for the features, storage, and capability you actually use.
- Increased Productivity – Colocation data centers allow for cloud-hosted software that provides workflow automation. Teams with automated and integrated workload management tools make fewer errors and have more time to focus on other initiatives. Summit’s hosting services help a variety of industry support software that helps teams stay on track and achieve business expectations.
- Reduced downtime – Data center-managed services constantly monitor performance and proactively handle threats before they become problems. Summit Hosting utilizes a suite of methods to ensure 99% uptime for every business that hosts software and computing solutions with us.
Before outsourcing any part of your IT operations, it’s vital that you carefully review service-level agreements. The last thing you want is to get locked into a contract that doesn’t work for you. Summit Hosting even gives you 14 days to determine if our solutions are suitable for your organization.
Of course, there are some drawbacks to a managed data center. Those drawbacks include things like vendor lock-in and a loss of direct control. While neither of these is devastating, the fact that they exist is a factor you must consider before investing in a managed data center.
What Types of Services are Managed?
Now that you know some of the benefits of investing in a managed services platform, let’s discuss a bit more of the services that come with these solutions. Of course, Summit Hosting provides these services and the benefits above, making it competitive with giants like Microsoft and IBM.
Regular Service Maintenance
Maintenance on a private cloud system can quickly inflate budgets. Even businesses that operate hybrid cloud systems can benefit from the regular service maintenance a managed data center provides. A managed data center employs teams of experts to ensure everything runs smoothly. They’ll verify that cooling systems and power are in working order and make repairs on systems showing vulnerabilities.
Backup and Restoration
The philosophy of backups and restorations should start from provisioning and continue regularly. At Summit Hosting, we believe in a robust backup system that includes nightly updates, and backups remain stored for 15 days or more if you choose. Summit encrypts every restoration point and creates a duplicate in a storage vault just in case something happens to the original backup.
System Upgrades
Technology is advancing at a staggering rate. MIT reports that dynamic information exchange and support system integrations
account for a 216% annual improvement rate. That means that every year, the capabilities of everything from network services to software hosting are several times better than the year before. Managed data services make that growth possible through robust system upgrades on components from operating systems to server racks.
Disaster Planning
Businesses rely on the resiliency of tech stacks to perform an ever-increasingly great demand of processes. Things like processing payments to managing logistics utilize massive amounts of computing capacity. Still, when a component of that system fails or a cyber attack happens, the symphony comes crashing to a halt. That’s when a well-established disaster recovery plan makes the difference.
Let Summit Hosting Manage Your Data Centers
Colocation makes some business leaders nervous. As does virtualization. However, as technology continues to advance, the case for onsite data centers is harder to make. Consider the benefits, which include everything from better team performance to unlimited scalability. Every aspect of a managed data center works to make running your business more flexible, especially when you invest in a
cloud-based service provider!
Managed data centers feature a pay-as-you-go structure, which makes it more affordable to select the IT services you’ll use. Yet, every provider should offer a few essentials like regular backups, basic service maintenance, upgrades, updates, and disaster planning.
While consumers expect these services from providers like Cisco, Amazon AWS, or VMWare, these big providers see you as only a customer. We see you as so much more. At Summit Hosting, we provide the managed data center solution you need while maintaining a personal connection. Our support is 100% human, and we deliver a 99% uptime rate — big-name quality with a small-company feel. Summit Hosting, we’re always on, always secure!
