Technique

Dan Cameron

primary business applications should reside on the local area network (LAN) in order to achieve best performance. While this line of thinking may make perfect sense for certain client/server applications, it is becoming less common due to the impact of the Internet and Web business process services.

Vendors of client/server applications have been pushed toward enabling their products to work across relatively low-bandwidth situations. Being able to access business data from home or on the road has become critical for major business software. Additionally, because of the rapid development time and relative ease of deployment, Web services and interfaces to company data have become increasingly popular.

Traditionally, collocation in an offsite data center has been reserved for public facing Web sites. With many internal business systems now operating in much the same manner as public sites, posibilities open up for housing private systems outside of the office. The main downside to housing servers offsite is that your bandwidth needs are likely to increase, leading to higher monthly charges. Depending on how many servers you need to collocate, renting the physical-data-center space may be a significant cost.

One of the big advantages is that a high-quality data center can provide you with much better environmental conditions. Look for high-quality air conditioning, power conditioning, generator backup and fire-suppression systems. The more systems you are able to collocate, the less you will need to spend on these items in your own data center or wiring closet. The high cost of bandwidth can be offset by companies with significant Web sites or those looking to install bandwidth-intensive applications such as Voice-over Internet Protocol (VoIP). The data center can also be used as an aggregation point for remote offices or branches, allowing them greater access to business information. Now is a good time to analyze your tech infrastructure and take a look at the changing face of collocation.