Data center migration, location is the key

Data center migration sites play an important role in our decision making process. From choosing where to live, where to work, where to spend a holiday, and even where to do business and how we manage our information.

The growth of data, together with the need for more flexible and customized IT capabilities, means that a lot of money is needed to manage and maintain the internal IT infrastructure, which is becoming harder to prove. On the contrary, third party online stores, such as hosting facilities, and the flexibility of the terms provided by these providers, now means that you can transfer responsibilities to others, so that you can rest assured that your IT infrastructure is secure. But once you decide to outsource, how would you choose a provider?
Historically, London is usually the best place to store information, but with the consideration of rents, scalability, and data growth, operators are starting to think more, so there are more locations to choose from. Recently, a report from BroadGroup, a data consultancy, showed that Ireland was the best place to establish facilities in Europe, and the reasons for it were the connection between cities, tax incentives and government active support. Among them, Amazon and Microsoft have offices in Dublin, it is worth mentioning that, here is one of Microsoft's largest offices in europe.
Now, apple is expected to set up a 850 million euro data center in Athenry, outside Dublin, which makes more and more companies start to think about the traditional data center position. So what are the factors that need to be taken into account when looking for a location?
First, facilities in major cities automatically involve costs and risks associated with urban life. In rare places like London, the rental market is very competitive, so the cost is passed on to the customer.
Another consideration is the future cost - whether your business is likely to grow, which means you may need more rack space. If this assumption is established, it needs to ensure that the center can provide room for growth, because it is expensive to relocate the facilities to the new environment. The centers outside London tend to be bigger, have greater development and scale, so it is easy to integrate into new technologies.
Although location related costs may be specific to a business, security and risk are a common concern in the industry. Traditionally, data centers are often close and connected to each other. In London, you'll find most of the data centers are in the east of the city. Although the proximity to the financial district and the major exchanges has obvious advantages, but at the same time, there are also potential risks, especially to put all data centers in one basket.
People are living in a real society where terrorism threatens, and the recent attacks in London and Manchester are a serious reminder, and it also intermittently shows that we can't predict the coming of an event. The city that attacks may be locked in, and remote guidance measures can reduce the loss of this problem, but what happens if your data center has a problem and no one will solve it?
In addition, the natural environment of the data center is also an important element to define security, which essentially increases or reduces the risk of the enterprise. The data center is located near the river, such as Thames River, and in the case of flooding, Zhejiang directly affects the operation of the data center. Locating a data center in a flooded area has always been a dangerous strategy, and the thing that needs to be protected is that once the flood defense system fails, the entire IT system will be destroyed.
For big cities, fires are also a constant threat. Although today's advanced fire protection systems have a long history of protecting urban data centers, the risks are still very high compared to those outside the data centers located outside the city.  When looking for data center partners, these are things that companies should consider. For each company, each business has its own unique needs, its facilities to meet these needs is very important. Even big cities like London seem to be the choice of opinion when outsourcing information, but it's important that it's not the only option. This has been confirmed by the rise of Ireland and other regions. Knowing this will help you gain more features and benefits, reduce the risk of risk, and significantly reduce costs.