5 questions to ask high-density data centre providers
So, it’s time to move to a high-density data centre (HDDC). Choosing a provider can be daunting but understanding which questions to ask and what to look for will help you make an informed decision.
Making the move to a high-density data centre?
For many organisations, moving to a HDDC is a result of ever-growing data requirements and the need for an ultra-low latency network to support high-power computing (HPC).
When choosing a HDDC provider, careful evaluation will go a long way – the stakes can be high. To help with this process, here are five key questions to ask potential HDDC providers:
1. Do you support high-performance computing (HPC)?
One of the first things to ask data centre providers is whether their data centre facilities and environment support HPC. Creating an environment that’s suitable for HPC requires optimising a range of components across compute, power, cooling, networking, and storage. It’s important to ensure your provider has the right data centre setup in place, as some data centres are designed for lower densities, which would leave you with a compromised solution.
2. Do you offer onsite expertise and technical advice?
While it’s important to choose a data centre based on your technical requirements and capacity for data management, there’s also the people aspect to consider. Regrettably, most data centre problems are caused by human error.
Consider asking potential HDDC providers questions like “what happens when something goes wrong — who would I call?”.
It’s crucial you can be confident that your provider has the ability and capacity to quickly resolve any future problems.
3. Do you have custom cooling options?
A HDDC is defined by how well it cools. It’s important that your provider has expert knowledge of available data centre cooling systems. Start by identifying which type of cooling you require for your density and then ensure you choose a data centre that can accommodate your requirements in an energy-efficient way.
For example, Interactive provides custom cooling solutions, designed to suit each customer’s IT equipment. Adaptive cooling technology also minimises energy consumption through containment, close-coupled cooling, and CPU liquid solutions.
4. Are your solutions cost efficient?
It’s not uncommon for customers to over-estimate their needs. This can result in being sold more power and space than required – costing extra and taking investment from other areas. When considering your data centre requirements, it’s important to understand exactly what you’re going to need to support your unique business.
5. Can we scale up or down to meet changing needs?
In most data centres, the load upon individual machines varies. For example, a financial trading platform will always have far more demand during the day than in the middle of the night. As such, it’s important to think about the demand you are likely to place on your data centre – and whether it can cater for peaks and troughs.
If nothing else, a HDDC must be flexible enough to meet ever-changing customer needs to survive over the long-term.
Want to know more?
If speed is important for your business, it could be time to investigate if moving to a high-density data centre is right for you.
Interactive’s high-density data centres are intelligently designed to support the next generation of infrastructure. Our solutions have been designed by our team of experts to specifically facilitate high performance computing and we are one of the very few data centres designed for high-density with water-based, close-coupled cooling in Australia.
If you’d like to learn more about how our custom-built high-density environments we can improve your operating efficiencies, get in touch with the team of experts today.
