Simon Chamberlain speaks to the team at LDeX Group about the factors which he considers imperative when looking to choose a data centre provider.
If someone were to recommend a data centre, what would their recommendation be based on?
Most probably on whether the DC is “Tier 3″, well connected, secure, has reliable and sufficient power, and is in a suitable location. All are important considerations, however the most usual reason for choosing a DC comes down to price. As long as the usual boxes are ticked, everything comes down to which provider can provide the most cost effective solution – which is of course is perfectly reasonable.
As someone who has worked extensively with data centres over the past 15 years or so, I have found that the one thing that really differentiates them is service. Some data centres do not match up to expectations once the all important contract is signed. When it comes to getting problems resolved or connectivity provisioned they just don’t want to know or will charge you through the nose.
There are several scenarios where service becomes absolutely critical. Imagine you have a colocated server that suddenly goes offline. In no uncertain terms, this is clearly a panic stricken situation. Customers start calling, and there is severe time pressure to get to the bottom of what is going on. You might have invested in several layers of resilience and probably promised 100% uptime to your customers, but if you get hit by a DDoS attack or hacked by a disgruntled employee, then you’re a dead duck. At these critical times you need help and quickly. This is when the DC service centre really makes a difference. Can your DC really get someone in front of your cab in five minutes with a laptop and a remote login? Do they have a 24/7 NOC that can troubleshoot any connectivity issues at any complexity quickly and efficiently? Or is it going to be quicker for you to drive to the DC and try and figure out things for yourself?
You maybe thinking that critical situations are (thankfully) rare and your business can survive the odd outage. Service isn’t just about critical situations though – it’s about the day to day running of your colocation. It’s about upgrading kit, getting patch leads installed, IP transit installed. Can you send hardware to your data centre that is securely stored and then installed by a trained technician? Is there a technician who is constantly keeping you in the loop at all times? Can you get a cross-connect installed within an hour of requesting it? Does your DC provide connectivity solutions where the NOC will contact you if there is a problem, before you know one exists?
Does such a data centre even exist? Well yes it does, and it’s called LDeX . Of course, as a director of LDeX you would expect me to say that, but I can honestly say that LDeX really does deliver on this front. If you don’t believe me, talk to our customers. Having conducted a recent customer satisfaction survey, it revealed that our average score for service is 9/10, and this is the biggest reason we have such a low churn rate. It’s part of our ethos and why we are successful in a competitive market.
That’s all very well and good I hear you say, but surely most data centres have all that covered. Well unfortunately they don’t. Typically cross connects in our competitor data centres take between five and ten days to deliver. Some DCs don’t even provide remote hands, or if they do, the skill level is often questionable. Some are bogged down in process and red tape. Getting permission to do anything can take days or even weeks to sort out. This is why is it crucial to work with a data centre that provides efficient and impeccable services levels at any time of day. The really great news is LDeX also ticks all the regular boxes and is one of the best priced colo providers on the market supplemented with superior connectivity from top tier connectivity providers backed up by an onsite 24/7 NOC.
There is a really great feeling about having happy customers and that’s why we pride ourselves on our customer service.
To find out more about LDeX see www.ldexgroup.co.uk , or get in touch on +44 (0)207 183 3959.
