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Colocation Data Center Management Tips and Tricks – How to Get the Most from Your Colo Investment

For many companies, colocation (or “colo”) is a more cost-effective data center management option than migrating to the cloud. However, since colo space is often rented by the rack, with added costs for power usage and cooling, it is important to ensure that your colocation setup is as efficient as possible.

Clearly, having the most efficient and small rack setup is a great idea, but here are 3 additional solutions you may not thought of that can help you save on costs if you decide to colocate some or all of your data center equipment.

Power Monitoring Solutions

Colocation facilities build their businesses on their data center management reputations, so it makes sense to trust them to monitor and report on power usage properly. However, because your money is on the line, it is also a smart idea to take a “trust but verify” approach, in which you have a way to independently verify their numbers if something seems out of the ordinary.

Using a space-saving power monitoring solution, such as a rack PDU with monitoring capabilities, can also help you keep an eye on your power usage in near real time, so you can respond quickly if you experience a power anomaly that could drive up your costs.

Thermal and Environmental Monitoring and Management Solutions

Renting colocation space puts your servers near other people’s servers and, like renting an apartment, this means you sometimes have to mitigate the damage from your neighbors’ problems. Perhaps your colo neighbor has a poorly insulated liquid cooling system for their rack setup and it leaks on your server. It’s best to know about this issue instantly with the help of environmental sensors that can detect moisture, rather than to wait until a full shutdown occurs.

Similarly, you will also want to monitor your server’s temperature to identify if your off-site data center management costs are being negatively impacted by your neighbor’s aging or overloaded equipment that is overheating near your equipment.

KVM Switches over IP

KVM switches, which stand for “Keyboard, Video, Monitor,” are a way to hook multiple servers up to a single access point. Today’s remote access KVM over IP options make it possible for you to remotely manage your colocated servers yourself, without having to rely on your colo facility’s remote hands option. Remote hands are great… but if the colo facility runs into a large problem that affects all the servers, the largest clients will be served first by the remote hands, which could leave you with more downtime than is necessary. It is always best to have a way to handle your own server management when needed.

Get the Most from Your Colocation Data Center Management Plan

Colocation can be a great solution for companies wanting to reduce their data center footprints and establish predictable data center pricing, but costs can add up quickly if you don’t set up and manage your colocation servers properly.

Save Money on Colocation. Contact Donwil to Learn How.

Since 1965, Donwil has been the team to trust for sales backed by responsive and reliable service for enterprises that want to get the most from their critical business process power and cooling solutions. As the exclusive provider of Vertiv, Liebert, Starline, and Hitachi, Donwil delivers a range of critical services and solutions to keep organizations across Western Pennsylvania, Western Virginia, and Eastern Ohio always running.

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