You may have considered collocation for your company, but are unsure if the service will be right for you. Here are the basic things you need to know about data residency, and what it can do for your business.
What is data residency?
Many businesses, particularly in the IT sector, are highly dependent on storing data. And since data isn’t a tangible object, it might not seem like housing that information would take much room or effort, considering the commercial availability of storage devices with large digital storage capacity but compact physical size.
Small businesses may be able to store their limited information on-site, but as your business grows, so will its data, and so will the space needed for data residency. Dedicated data centers offer services far beyond what non-dedicated companies have the time, space or resources for.
How safe is it?
The data your business needs to store is likely very important, and may be sensitive for your customers, staff or company. It may seem like the safest option is to host it in-house, to minimize the threat of it being compromised or lost. But maintaining a properly-functioning hosting service can require a lot of effort, and may involve more space, staff, time and resources than you can afford to dedicate to it.
Data centers are designed to securely house your information. Power loss or hardware damage could erase crucial files, or prevent customers or employees from accessing their information when they need it. These situations may be difficult to avoid if self-hosting, but managed collocation facilities have systems in place to prevent such disruptions.
Backup power sources and multiple copies of the data, are necessities that most centers provide innately. Many have fire suppression systems to prevent data loss through hardware damage, and advanced security precautions, including surveillance, guards and monitored networks to prevent data theft.
Will it limit our company’s ability to access the information?
All those security features mean nothing if the data isn’t easily accessible by those authorized to access it. One perceived advantage of self-hosting is that the data is simple to access if it’s on-site. While this may be the case at times, managed co-hosting services are designed around ease of access as much as they are about security.
The connection to the servers is fast and easy, for both your business and your customers, and the security features you need enforced will continue to be so. Your staff will be able to access the information they require, when they need to, and your customers will be able to do the same for their own. Managed collocation allows access 24/7, and technical support is available on-site whenever the need may arise.
Is it within our budget?
It may seem more efficient and budget-conscious to set up your own hosting service, rather than paying a third-party company to do it for you. But in the long run, the benefits of utilizing a data center, such as one with Macquarie Telecom, become clear. A reasonable fee gets you access to all the facilities available, including advanced security and data loss prevention methods, a team of maintenance staff and a stable infrastructure. It’s far more efficient and affordable to outsource that service to a company dedicated to it, rather than burden your own company with creating its own model that will likely be less effective.
Author bio: Michael Irving is a freelance writer and blogger, who has been researching data centre options with Macquarie Telecom for one of his employers.