We explore two sides of the same coin, balancing the need for uptime and resilience from data centre operators with businesses’ fears of downtime when switching providers. Expert insight from Terry Storrar, Managing Director, Leaseweb UK and Simon Yeoman, CEO, Fasthosts provides strategies for ensuring reliability and guides businesses on mitigating risks during migration.
Terry Storrar, Managing Director, Leaseweb UK
Only recently, the UK government has highlighted the essential role that data centres play in the country’s economy and security, by classifying these as part of the critical national infrastructure. Along with power networks, transportation and communications services, if a data centre suffers any downtime, even for a short time, this can have significant and damaging implications for any infrastructures or services for which they provide the backbone support.
It is no wonder that data centre businesses must constantly strive to keep their services running 24/7 for customers in every industry sector.
This is even more critical now that many businesses and services heavily rely on data and connectivity to function – even at the most basic level – so data centre services must be available, dependable and scalable constantly.
The pressure is on data centre businesses to continually bolster their resilience practices along with safety and security measures to maintain services, and that includes managing these through the challenges of any threat, disruption or disaster.
Currently, replication and diversity are two key priorities to protect against downtime. With end customers fully aware that they need to replicate their data in multiple locations or with different providers, this needs to be built into a coordinated and agile business continuity plan. For data centre professionals, this means ensuring that data is accessible no matter where it is stored and that staff are fully up to date with all continuity and recovery procedures.
Arguably, there is less focus on geo-redundancy as a basis for data replication and backup plans. With the complications and restrictions brought by data sovereignty, more companies are considering data replication using several suppliers to protect against downtime – rather than spreading data across locations with one data centre operator. This approach might change again once regional and cross-border data sovereignty agreements come into play – for example, the initiative between 12 European Union member states to create a cohesive European sovereign cloud infrastructure.
On a very practical note, data centre businesses should not undervalue the importance of conducting regular testing as part of business as usual. Training staff in this way ensures readiness for managing downtime caused by a range of scenarios and for implementing a backup plan if and when required.
Simon Yeoman, CEO, Fasthosts
In a world where online presence is everything, organisations of all sizes are dependable on IT services. However, when it comes to switching providers, even well-established businesses are often surprisingly hesitant. The culprit? The fear of downtime. System outages can lead to lost revenue, frustrated customers and a tarnished reputation – consequences that make even the most performance-hungry businesses think twice.
However, clinging to the familiar is no way forward. Businesses shouldn’t be deterred from exploring better IT options because they are nervous about the unknown. The answer lies in striking a balance between minimising downtime risk and venturing towards pastures new.
Making the switch
For businesses looking to address the risks posed by downtime, four essential steps must be combined to form a robust provider migration plan.
- Carry out a risk assessment and comprehensive audit: Businesses can unveil potential hazards that exist or may arise during the transition, as well as the consequences to operations. An extensive inventory makes sure that a business has noted all the essential components that need to be transferred in the move.
- Embed a contingency response into the migration plan: This acts as a safety net against data breaches, human error and network outages. A backup system protects businesses from losing critical data and allows them to revert to an earlier version of their system if something goes wrong.
- Decide business operations during migration: The plan must factor in maintenance breaks to check the security and performance at convenient times. Scheduling these breaks means minimising overall disruption to their operations and customers. For example, an e-commerce business may plan employee training for its new cloud system in line with off-peak customer shopping hours.
- Testing and monitoring: A successful migration plan needs both, with testing taking place before and after, and underlying monitoring throughout.
How to know when migration is right
Making the switch is not an easy decision. Again, there are four boxes a business should look for its IT infrastructure provider to tick before contemplating a move.
- Is the provider there when needed? Reliable round-the-clock customer support is crucial for addressing any issues that arise before, during and after a switch. For businesses with small IT departments or limited resources, this external support offers reliable infrastructure management without needing an extensive in-house team.
- Uptime guarantees and Service Level Agreements (SLAs): Prioritise service providers outlining compensation for downtime, such as Uptime Institute’s Tier 4 classification. Businesses should opt for partners certified as fully fault-tolerant, highly resilient and guaranteeing an uptime of 99.9%. This protects the business’ crucial IT systems, keeping them operational despite disruptive activity such as a cyberattack, failing components or unexpected outages.
- Robust security measures: Check if the provider has measures in place to protect the business’s IT environment and customer data, such as patch management. This can help to resolve software bugs and boost system stability and performance.
- Can the provider accommodate growth? Any business set on scaling needs to ensure its IT service provider can expand with it. This means supporting growth in traffic and data storage needs. Partnering with a provider that understands the business’s growth plans helps the IT infrastructure scale efficiently and reliably, matching the company’s objectives. And as a business grows, so too does its vulnerability to security risks and regulatory requirements. Therefore a diligent IT provider can guide a business in adapting to these changes, keeping their infrastructure secure and compliant.
Feeling the fear and doing it anyway
Trustworthy IT services are non-negotiable yet fear of downtime holds businesses back. So, instead, they sit in limbo, afraid of losing revenue or aggravating customers – even though they see the potential benefits of exploring new IT options.
However, businesses can’t be ruled by this fear. They need to establish a balance between minimising the potential risks with exploring new possibilities. By creating a thorough migration plan and vetting providers extensively, businesses can make the switch safely and unlock their performance potential.
