The increasing volume of global data is a growing challenge for organizations striving to manage their data operations effectively. Managed data center services have emerged as a robust solution, offering businesses the expertise of external professionals.
Let’s explore how managed data centers enable businesses to boost productivity, minimize costs, and foster greater innovation.
Understanding Managed Data Centers
A managed data center is a site run, maintained, and overseen by an external vendor. These offerings include continuous installation, optimization, maintenance, and upgrades of the infrastructure.
Skilled technicians provide 24/7 monitoring of both physical and virtual infrastructure, offering numerous advantages to organizations utilizing these services.
Differences Between Managed and Fully Managed Data Centers
The main difference between a data center that is partially managed and a fully managed facility is the level of administration the client possesses and the services provided. Usually, clients retain more control over their software and data in partially managed centers, while the provider offers basic infrastructure management, limited IT services, and basic security.
Fully managed centers, however, give the provider full responsibility for the entire infrastructure and IT operations, including comprehensive management of physical infrastructure, IT services, and extensive security and compliance measures. The provider handles everything from monitoring and incident response to software and data management.
Differences Between Managed Data Centers and Data Center as a Service (DCaaS)
In managed data center services, companies outsource the oversight and upkeep of their data center infrastructure. Conversely, Data Center as a Service (DCaaS) is a cloud-based model where the entire data center infrastructure, including computing resources, storage, and networking, is offered as a service.
One significant difference is ownership: with managed data centers, the company owns the physical infrastructure, while DCaaS involves transferring both ownership and management to an external provider.
Differences Between Managed Data Centers and Colocation
Colocation provides a middle ground for businesses seeking to offload data center infrastructure management. In this setup, you retain ownership and control over your hardware and software, essentially renting space within a provider’s facility. While this offers greater customization, it requires in-house technical expertise and ongoing investment in equipment and personnel.
Conversely, managed data centers cater to organizations that may lack the internal resources or expertise to manage their data center environment entirely.
Types of Data Center Managed Services
IT solution and service vendors scale their offers to meet clients’ specific requirements. Managed data center services can generally split into sections:
- Managed hosting services
- Cloud-managed data center services
- IT infrastructure management
Key Managed Data Center Services
- Server Management: Ensures optimal server performance through meticulous monitoring and maintenance, managing hardware, software, security, and backups.
- Storage Management: Encompasses installation, relocation, capacity coordination, supervision, governance, archiving, and disaster recovery for digital storage assets.
- Network Management: Streamlines software delivery and maintains secure communication channels, ranging from basic connectivity to advanced virtual network services.
- Cloud Management: Involves managing virtual machines, storage, databases, and other elements within cloud environments, from implementation to ongoing oversight.
- Disaster Recovery and Backup: Performing regular backups, which involve creating or updating copies of files and storing them securely in different locations for easy access in case of data loss.
- Security Services: Employs strong security measures like intrusion detection systems that identify unauthorized access attempts, threat monitoring that tracks potential risks, encryption that scrambles data for confidentiality, and multi-factor authentication that adds an extra layer of verification for user access.
- Compliance Services: Ensures organizations adhere to legal, regulatory, and operational mandates, safeguarding sensitive data and meeting industry standards.
- Infrastructure Management: Proactive management and administration of technology and data, including communication services, data processing, storage, and knowledge management.
- Virtualization Management: Oversight, provisioning, and upkeep of virtualized environments, including configuration, management, and monitoring performance.
- Performance Monitoring: Real-time data center monitoring to minimize downtime, focusing on network connectivity, server performance, and storage performance.
Main Advantages of Managed Data Center Services
Managed data centers are especially advantageous for businesses demanding significant data archiving but lacking the resources to maintain an on-site facility. Here are some key advantages of adopting managed data center services:
- Scalability: Enjoy flexible resource allocation to meet changing operational requirements without managing an in-house facility.
- Enhanced Security: Leverage reputable data center partners who implement comprehensive security measures and manage regulatory compliance.
- Cost-Efficient Operations: Reduce costs by eliminating upfront investments and ongoing maintenance associated with physical data center operations.
- Robust Disaster Recovery: Benefit from robust disaster recovery solutions, such as backup systems and virtualization capabilities.
- Predictable Performance: Advanced monitoring tools ensure reliability and high availability, optimizing user experiences.
- Global Accessibility: Access global connectivity through numerous access points across the globe by partnering with an international data center provider.
- Specialized Expertise: Secure the support of technical professionals with specialized knowledge for streamlined data center design, configuration, and operation.
Choosing the Right Managed Data Center Services Provider
Choosing the right data center managed service vendor can be challenging. Here are some key criteria to consider:
- Reliability: Select a provider with robust infrastructure and SLAs guaranteeing continuous uptime.
- Safeguarding Your Data: Prioritize providers with cutting-edge data security strategies and adherence to relevant laws.
- Adaptability: Make sure the managed data center services can scale and adjust to your specific needs.
- Proven Expertise: Choose established firms with a demonstrated history of success in data center management.
- Technical Capabilities: Evaluate each provider’s capacity to handle intricate data center projects.
- Customer Validation: Verify service quality by examining references, gathering testimonials, and directly contacting satisfied clients.
Conclusion
Leveraging managed data center services allows organizations to tap into external expertise, optimize data center operations, and achieve new levels of efficiency, security, and scalability. By carefully evaluating unique needs and choosing a qualified provider with a proven track record, businesses can maximize the benefits of this dynamic and growing solution.
Prepared by: Comarch
About Comarch: Comarch is one of the largest IT companies in Europe, carrying out projects for leading brands from Poland and around the world in the most important economic sectors. With 16 data centers, 6 cloud regions, and 25+ years of experience, Comarch is the leading expert in data center, cloud, and IT services.
Learn more at https://www.comarch.com/trade-and-services/ict/