Out of city, but not missing out!

Out of city, but not missing out

They say that location is everything when you are buying a home. Location is also vital when business communications are concerned. Add the critical need to manage data; the location of a business’s data centre has never been more vital to get right.

Businesses are looking toward their post-pandemic futures, managing dispersed workforces, and ensuring they have the data and communications infrastructure they need to innovate, at an affordable cost, which is driving businesses to look outside of the major cities. As a result, the OOC (Out-of-City) data centre trend is accelerating.

The practical aspects of moving your enterprise’s data centre requirements away from major cities must also be considered. Good transport links that are not congested play a significant role in how your company can efficiently use its OOC data services. Research from FuelGenie discovered that traditional locations for data centres suffer from significant traffic congestion, which impacts an enterprise’s ability to access their data centre services and the speed at which they can access their data too.

The geography of data

Is moving out of the major data centre hubs practical? This is a question we are often asked at Custodian. Adopting an out-of-city strategy delivers several advantages, including lower overall costs, fast and efficient access, the ability to offer bespoke services, and a high level of connectivity and resilience. Another advantage of Custodian’s out-of-city locations is the on-site team of expertise, which is not always available from data centres situated in central locations. At Custodian, the in-house team is vital and the engineering personnel play an important role in designing and structuring the data centre to be as flexible and agile as possible, acting as an extension of your team.

Another critical component that all businesses are actively considering is the

ESG (Environment, Social and Governance) of the data service providers they partner with. Driven by the demands from their customers to ensure strong ESG is always factored into any service buying decision, ESG is a significant driver for OOC data centres deployments.

At Custodian, our new Dartford 10MW data facility ‘DA2’,  is built on a foundation of sustainability. A spokesperson for Crossways Management Company, where the DA2 site is located, explained why Custodian was the perfect business to join the park: “Custodian stood out as the perfect business partner, aligning with its sustainability goals, providing a low power usage effectiveness (PUE) data centre, powered by renewable energy. The collaboration between our organisations will pave the way for both existing and new occupants to take steps towards becoming greener and more ecologically forward-thinking.”

Infrastructure trends

A robust, flexible, and secure data infrastructure is the foundation of great businesses. Today we are on the cusp of a new era of digital growth that will see Artificial intelligence, extended Reality, and Quantum computing (DARQ) technologies adopted across all industries and sectors.

All these technologies require fast, low-latency connectivity to realise their full potential. As businesses connect these technologies to their services and products, a resilient and flexible data centre partner is essential. Moving out of central allows for more diverse connectivity opportunities to become available as the fight for connectivity within the surrounding areas and other data centres is reduced. Custodian offers resilient 2N UPS and on-site substations to offer industry-leading levels of resilience along with providing its own dark-fibre network, both of which are essential for industries such as entertainment, gaming and financial services, where low-latency is vital. For example, a connectivity dip for gaming providers could mean a loss for thousands of players, sometimes worldwide. Custodian boasts an outstanding 99.9% uptime record, made possible by the diverse connectivity options at both its Maidstone headquarters and latest build, DA2, in Dartford.

Flexibility is the watchword when data and business services are connected. The OOC approach is proving the ideal solution for businesses that need to construct hybrid data management systems that can support their post-pandemic businesses, in a cost-efficient way. It’s clear that the appeal of centralised city-based data centres is waning as companies look elsewhere to realise their ambitions and help them transform.