A primer on colocation
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The document discusses the challenges faced by datacenters, specifically focusing on scalability and reliability, as experienced by Ratnakar Bank and Thomson Reuters. Both organizations turned to colocation solutions to meet their operational needs, optimize costs, and enhance efficiency amidst ongoing business transformations. Colocation emerged as a strategic choice to overcome hurdles related to IT infrastructure, allowing companies to focus on growth and innovation while managing their resources effectively.
A primer on colocation
- 1. Colocation Addresses DC Challenges Related to Scalability and Reliability It started when Kholapur- based Ratnakar Bank wanted to completely transform its business right from expanding its offerings, enhancing its service efficiency to meet its internal and external customer demands and improving customer satisfaction – a business transformation strategy was in the charts. It was then that Anup Purohit, Head of IT at the Bank knew his moment had arrived. Fresh challenges were daunting him and his IT team as they geared up for what was about to come. In this Guide Addressing 10 Key Data Center Challenges by Colocation Colocation Addresses DC Challenges Related to Scalability and Reliability Colocation Addresses Enterprise Need for Low Latency and Scalability Provider (MSSP) Colocation Addresses DC Challenges Related to Scalability and Reliability Datacenter operations, including colocation hosting, change almost on a daily basis. These changes affect current and long-term business. They involve things like core datacenter management, planning, operational strategies, risk management and more. The goal is to prepare for, and adapt to, these trends with an overall focus on resource optimization and cost reduction. One major development in the datacenter market is the growing demand for colocation hosting. Although significant investments have been made in datacenter facilities over recent years, availability remains an issue. The Primer on DC Colocation will help in identifying the challenges associated and how to overcome those challenges. Colocation January 2015 Addressing 10 Key Data Center Challenges by Colocation Stability, Reliability, Robustness, Scalability, Cost, Speed, Staffing, Standardization, Monitoring and Management challenges typical to Data Centers can be addressed by colocation Colocation Addresses DC Challenges Related to Scalability and Reliability Scalability, Stability, Reliability and Robustness challenges typical to Data Centers can be addressed by colocation Colocation Addresses Enterprise Need for Low Latency and Scalability Colocation helped Thomson Reuters setup a dynamic, scalable, high speed, low latency and competitive IT environment for the launch of a new product line
- 2. Addressing 10 Key Data Center Challenges by Colocation Stability, Reliability, Robustness, Scalability, Cost, Speed, Staffing, Standardization, Monitoring and Management challenges typical to Data Centers can be addressed by colocation Anup Purohit knew that his moment had arrived. Fresh challenges were daunting him and his IT team as they geared up for what was about to come. Addressing 10 Key Data Center Challenges by Colocation Colocation Addresses DC Challenges Related to Scalability and Reliability Colocation Addresses Enterprise Need for Low Latency and Scalability Provider (MSSP) Colocation Addresses DC Challenges Related to Scalability and Reliability Anup Purohit, Head of IT at Ratnakar Bank, had clear objectives laid out for him, which is to say a little vague at the most. The bank wanted to completely transform its business right from expanding its offerings, enhancing its service efficiency to meet its internal and external customer demands and improving customer satisfaction – a business transformation strategy was in the charts. This meant that the ITteam had to embark on a transformational journey that would put the Bank at the cutting edge of technology.IT at the Bank before the transformational journey was basic. Over 75 branches that were operational at that point in time were all connected to the central office via point-to- point connectivity.At the central office was a server room that hosted a Core Banking Application Server along with some periphery applications. Challenge: Setting up a DC and Cost Consideration Challenges related to stability of the IT setup, scalability, reliability and robustness were affecting the growth of the Bank. With legacy systems and need for employee training to embrace new technology, transformation seemed an uphill task. For Anup Purohit the transformation translated into three key buckets: IT infrastructure –build a reliable, robust and scalable infrastructure to run the bank's operations Business Applications –implement latest in banking applications that align to goals of the transformational journey People and Resources –hire skilled IT staff to run the next-generation of ITat the Bank Setting up a data center meant a whole 9 yards for Ratnakar Bank. From real estate selection, capacity planning, and construction of the DC to technology architecture planning, procurement of hardware and networking components and applications to commissioning and planning DR –a time consuming, cost intensive, and all in all a daunting task for the team at Ratnakar. Anup Purohit turned to colocation as the answer to the issue at hand. Looking further, it made perfect sense to outsource the Bank's data center infrastructure and management to someone who not only had the expertise to do so, but also had ready solutions that could be commissioned immediately. Hosting the data center at a third party data center facility benefited the Bank in multiple ways. One of the key benefits was the substantial savings in cost and time. Says Anup Purohit, "We have worked out a model with our service provider where our spend on IT is not only cost efficient but also gives us the flexibility to manage our cash flows. Wegot the benefit of avoiding a huge CapEx. Weonly pay for what we use. This was a great value add where Idid not have to utilize cash, instead we re-invested that into the business to get more business.” Challenge: Scalability, High Speed and Low Latency In 2010, Thomson Reuters launched Elektron, a real- time network and hosting environment, to meet strong demand for fast and cost-effective access to the emerging cash equities market in India. Elektron enables hedge funds, asset managers, banks, brokerage houses, exchanges and other participants to connect to the world's largest financial community and securely reach trading partners over the network globally. Paresh Hede, Chief Technology Officer at Thomson Reuters had a few challenges in hand. Elektron, a global service, needed an ultra-high speed, low
- 3. latency network and hosting environment that was carrier neutral, and had proximity to Bombay Stock Exchange (BSE) to help financial firms access and share information faster and cost effectively. Addressing 10 Key Data Center Challenges by Colocation Colocation Addresses DC Challenges Related to Scalability and Reliability Colocation Addresses Enterprise Need for Low Latency and Scalability Provider (MSSP) Colocation Addresses DC Challenges Related to Scalability and Reliability Also, they required a scalable platform to cater to their customer's growth plans. They wished to host all customers in a single hosted location. Paresh turned to colocation to address this challenge, and time was running out to put the product into the market. Thomson Reuters shortlisted managed IT hosting partners to provide dynamic, scalable, high speed, low latency and competitive IT environment. The decision came as a boon to Thomson Reuters. They were able to derive huge benefits including: They launched Elektron successfully in India within four months of the project being commissioned With IT infrastructure being managed by a third party infrastructure partner, the company is assured of smooth and hassle-free IT infrastructure operations, and is able to focus on growing its business in India and globally Robust, secure, scalable and a highly available IT infrastructure for their customers with negligible downtime Flexible cost structure on a 'pay-as-you-use model' has helped the company to derive significant cost benefits Challenge: Heterogeneous Environments Computerization at General Insurance Corporation of India (GIC Re) started way back in the 90s. In 2002, a business re-engineering study revealed the need for a transformation to address challenges of growth, time consuming business processes due to lack of effective IT support, and the key challenge – a heterogeneous IT environment that was daunting the IT team. GIC Re was running a heterogeneous landscape with servers and storage from various vendors. Managing different products and coordination with various vendors were turning into a nightmare for the IT team at GIC Re – since the number of vendor products were so many. GIC Re decided to go the colocation route – outsource their IT infrastructure part to a service provider who would manage the entire piece and all their infrastructure needs. “We decided to out source the entire management of the data center and ensure that we have a reliable and strong partner who can also fulfill our future needs – this would include all equipment as well as management of all the vendors who support us,” says Paul Lobo, Assistant General Manager – IT at GIC Re. This decision helped GIC in standardizing on all infrastructure elements. And, the service provider does all vendor management and coordination for various products within their infrastructure. Today, GIC runs a 24x7 infrastructure setup that is reliable, robust, scalable, supported 24x7 and cost optimized. Challenge: Skilled IT Workforce and 24x7 monitoring and management As Ratnakar Bank setup their state-of-the-art DC at a third party DC facility, the heat was felt when they had to manage the same. Hiring skilled IT staff was not easy, retaining them was even more challenging, and setting up a 24x7 monitoring and management team was cost intensive. At GIC, one of the key challenges that was keeping Paresh awake at night was the lack of resource to manage and maintain the IT infrastructure part –IT staff recruited were needed for the core business rather than maintenance of IT infrastructure – maintenance of products was mostly done by outsourced teams. In both cases, colocation was the answer to their people worries. Ratnakar Bank set up a DNOC (Dedicated Network Operations Center), which is managed 24x7 and monitored using BMC Patrol solution, with real-time alerts and integrated with ticketing system – all this done by at their third party DC facility by the service provider. The team manages and monitors the bank's critical IT infrastructure and provides technical support to the bank with respect to incident management and change management. GIC Re outsourced monitoring and management of their DC infrastructure to the third party service provider . who runs 24x7 support for the insurance company.
- 4. In Conclusion In todays economic fragility, investing CapEx into data centers is not viable and CIOs are burdened dealing with uncomfortable truths such as low Return on Investments (RoI) and increasing Total Cost of Ownership (TCO)before IT investments can be made. Such tight fisted budget approvals have forced these IT leaders to look for alternatives and better technology strategies to get more from less. So while CIOs are looking at solutions to address their over-utilized data centers, or to put it positively, while looking at data center expansion or growth projects, they should look and evaluate options carefully. There are many paths that can be right for the business, the trick lies in choosing the right path that fits the organization's long and short term goals – along with keeping parameters such as performance, reliability, cost optimization and reduction, and ease of management, at the top of their priority list. Colocation hosting is the answer. Colocation offers several additional advantages that can help businesses as they meander the evolution path of their data centers. Addressing 10 Key Data Center Challenges by Colocation Colocation Addresses DC Challenges Related to Scalability and Reliability Colocation Addresses Enterprise Need for Low Latency and Scalability Provider (MSSP) Colocation Addresses DC Challenges Related to Scalability and Reliability
- 5. Colocation Addresses DC Challenges Related to Scalability and Reliability Scalability, Stability, Reliability and Robustness challenges typical to Data Centers can be addressed by colocation When trying to address the challenges faced by over- utilized data center, or on the positive side, while embarking on data center expansion or growth projects, CIOs should evaluate their options carefully. Addressing 10 Key Data Center Challenges by Colocation Colocation Addresses DC Challenges Related to Scalability and Reliability Colocation Addresses Enterprise Need for Low Latency and Scalability Provider (MSSP) Colocation Addresses DC Challenges Related to Scalability and Reliability While there are various ways to address these challenges which are right for the business, the trick lies in choosing the right path that fits the organization's long and short term goals – along with keeping parameters such as performance, reliability, cost optimization and reduction, and ease of management, at the top of their priority list. Among the lot, colocation clearly stands out as the best answer! Colocation has proven abundantly successful in offering business and technology advantages that can help CIOs meander the evolution path of their data centers. A Case in Point A classic case in point is that of Kholapur-based Ratnakar Bank. The bankwanted to completely transform its business –starting from expanding its offerings, enhancing its service efficiency to meet its internal and external customer demands and improving customer satisfaction.Abusiness transformation strategy was in the charts. Anup Purohit, Head of IT at the Bank knew his moment had arrived. Fresh challenges were daunting him and his IT team as they geared up for what was about to come. So what did all this mean for the IT team? The IT team had to embark on a transformational journey that would put the Bank at the cutting edge of technology.Over 75 branches that were operational at that point in time were all connected to the central office via point-to-point connectivity.At the central officewas a server room that hosted a Core Banking Application Server along with some periphery applications. IT at the Bank before the transformational journey was basic. Challenges related to stability of the IT setup, scalability, reliability and robustness were affecting the growth of the Bank. With legacy systems and need for employee training to embrace new technology, transformation seemed an uphill task. Anup Purohit and his team broke down the transformation into smaller bits. Key among these were their achievement objectives: ITinfrastructure –build a reliable, robust and scalable infrastructure to run the bank's operations Business Applications –implement latest in banking applications that align to goals of the transformational journey People and Resources –hire skilled IT staff to run the next-generation of ITat the Bank Setting up a data center meant going all the way for the Bank –fromreal estate selection, capacity planning, and construction of the DC to technology architecture planning, procurement of hardware and networking components and applications to commissioning and planning DR. It was going to be a time consuming, cost intensive, and all in all a daunting task for the team at Ratnakar. Turning to Colocation Anup Purohit turned to colocation as the answer to the issue at hand. Looking further, it made perfect sense to outsource the Bank's data center infrastructure and management to someone who not only had the expertise to do so, but also had ready solutions that could be commissioned immediately. Hosting the data center at a third party data center facility benefited the Bank in multiple ways. One of the
- 6. key benefits was the substantial savings in cost and time. According to Anup Purohit, the Bank's spend on IT is not only cost efficient but also gives the flexibility to manage cash flows. They also benefitedby not having to invest huge CapEx. The Bank only pays for what they use. For the Bank this was a great value add where they did not have to utilize cash, instead re-invested that into the business to get more business. Addressing 10 Key Data Center Challenges by Colocation Colocation Addresses DC Challenges Related to Scalability and Reliability Colocation Addresses Enterprise Need for Low Latency and Scalability Provider (MSSP) Colocation Addresses DC Challenges Related to Scalability and Reliability
- 7. Colocation Addresses Enterprise Need for Low Latency and Scalability Colocation helped Thomson Reuters setup a dynamic, scalable, high speed, low latency and competitive IT environment for the launch of a new product line In today's economic fragility, investing CapEx into data centers is not viable and CIOs are burdened dealing with uncomfortable truths such as low Return on Investments (RoI) and increasing Total Cost of Ownership (TCO)before IT investments can be made. Such tight fisted budget approvals have forced these IT leaders to look for alternatives and better technology strategies to get more from less. Addressing 10 Key Data Center Challenges by Colocation Colocation Addresses DC Challenges Related to Scalability and Reliability Colocation Addresses Enterprise Need for Low Latency and Scalability Provider (MSSP) Colocation Addresses DC Challenges Related to Scalability and Reliability In 2010, Thomson Reuters, world's leading source of intelligent information for businesses and professionals providing customers with competitive advantage, launched Elektron, a real-time network and hosting environment, to meet strong demand for fast and cost-effective access to the emerging cash equities market in India.Elektron enables hedge funds, asset managers, banks, brokerage houses, exchanges and other participants to connect to the world's largest financial community and securely reach trading partners over the network globally. Challenges at Hand The Chief Technology Officer at Thomson Reuters, PareshHede, had a few challenges in hand. Elektron, which is a global service, needed an ultra- high speed, low latency network and hosting environment that was carrier neutral, and had proximity to Bombay Stock Exchange (BSE) to help financial firms access and share information faster and cost effectively. Not only that, business also demanded a scalable platform to cater to their customer's growth plans. They wanted to host all customers in a single hosted location. Paresh turned to colocation to address these challenges, and time was running out to put the product into the market. Thomson Reuters shortlisted managed IT hosting partners to provide dynamic, scalable, high speed, low latency and competitive IT environment. Colocation Offered Substantial Benefits The decision to go the colocation way came as a boon to Thomson Reuters. They were able to derive huge benefits including: They launched Elektron successfully in India within four months of the project being commissioned With IT infrastructure being managed by a third party infrastructure partner, the company is assured of smooth and hassle-free IT infrastructure operations, and is able to focus on growing its business in India and globally Robust, secure, scalable and a highly available IT infrastructure for their customers with negligible downtime Flexible cost structure on a 'pay-as-you-use model' has helped the company to derive significant cost benefits In Conclusion While CIOs are looking at solutions to address their over-utilized data centers, or to put it positively, while looking at data center expansion or growth projects, they should look and evaluate options carefully. Solutions to address these challenges are many. The trick lies in choosing the right path that fits the organization's long and short term goals – along with keeping parameters such as performance, reliability, cost optimization and reduction, and ease of management, at the top of their priority list. Colocation offers several additional advantages that can help businesses as they meander the evolution path of their data centers.
- 8. Colocation Addresses DC Challenges Related to Scalability and Reliability It started when Kholapur-based Ratnakar Bank wanted to completely transform its business right from expanding its offerings, enhancing its service efficiency to meet its internal and external customer demands and improving customer satisfaction – a business transformation strategy was in the charts. It was then that Anup Purohit, Head of IT at the Bank knew his moment had arrived. Fresh challenges were daunting him and his IT team as they geared up for what was about to come. This meant that the ITteam had to embark on a transformational journey that would put the Bank at the cutting edge of technology. IT at the Bank before the transformational journey was basic. Over 75 branches that were operational at that point in time were all connected to the central office via point-to- point connectivity. At the central office was a server room that hosted a Core Banking Application Server along with some periphery applications. Challenges related to stability of the IT setup, scalability, reliability and robustness were affecting the growth of the Bank. With legacy systems and need for employee training to embrace new technology, transformation seemed an uphill task. Addressing 10 Key Data Center Challenges by Colocation Colocation Addresses DC Challenges Related to Scalability and Reliability Colocation Addresses Enterprise Need for Low Latency and Scalability Provider (MSSP) Colocation Addresses DC Challenges Related to Scalability and Reliability For Anup Purohit the transformation translated into three key buckets: ITinfrastructure –build a reliable, robust and scalable infrastructure to run the bank's operations Business Applications –implement latest in banking applications that align to goals of the transformational journey People and Resources –hire skilled IT staff to run the next-generation of ITat the Bank Setting up a data center meant a whole 9 yards for Ratnakar Bank. From real estate selection, capacity planning, and construction of the DC to technology architecture planning, procurement of hardware and networking components and applications to commissioning and planning DR –a time consuming, cost intensive, and all in all a daunting task for the team at Ratnakar. Anup Purohit turned to colocation as the answer to the issue at hand. Looking further, it made perfect sense to outsource the Bank's data center infrastructure and management to someone who not only had the expertise to do so, but also had ready solutions that could be commissioned immediately. Hosting the data center at a third party data center facility benefited the Bank in multiple ways. One of the key benefits was the substantial savings in cost and time. Says Anup Purohit, "We have worked out a model with our service provider where our spend on IT is not only cost efficient but also gives us the flexibility to manage our cash flows. Wegot the benefit of avoiding a huge CapEx. Weonly pay for what we use. This was a great value add where Idid not have to utilize cash, instead we re-invested that into the business to get more business.” In Conclusion While CIOs are looking at solutions to address their over-utilized data centers, or to put it positively, while looking at data center expansion or growth projects, they should look and evaluate options carefully. There are many paths that can be right for the business, the trick lies in choosing the right path that fits the organization's long and short term goals – along with keeping parameters such as performance, reliability, cost optimization and reduction, and ease of management, at the top of their priority list. Colocation is the answer. Colocation offers several additional advantages that can help businesses as they meander the evolution path of their data centers.