A colocation center (also spelled co-location, or colo) or “carrier hotel“, is a type of data center where equipment, space, and bandwidth are available for rental to retail customers. Colocation facilities provide space, power, cooling, and physical security for the server, storage, and networking equipment of other firms—and connect them to a variety of telecommunications and network service providers—with a minimum of cost and complexity.
Many colocation providers sell to a wide range of customers, ranging from large enterprises to small companies. Typically, the customer owns the IT equipment and the facility provides power and cooling. Customers retain control over the design and usage of their equipment, but daily management of the data center and facility are overseen by the multi-tenant colocation provider.
• Cabinets – A cabinet is a locking unit that holds a server rack. In a multi-tenant data center, servers within cabinets share raised-floor space with other tenants, in addition to sharing power and cooling infrastructure.
•Cages – A cage is dedicated server space within a traditional raised-floor data center; it is surrounded by mesh walls and entered through a locking door. Cages share power and cooling infrastructure with other data center tenants.
•Suites – A suite is a dedicated, private server space within a traditional raised-floor data center; it is fully enclosed by solid partitions and entered through a locking door. Suites may share power and cooling infrastructure with other data center tenants, or have these resources provided on a dedicated basis.
•Modules – data center modules are purpose-engineered modules and components to offer scalable data center capacity. They typically use standardized components, which make them easily added, integrated or retrofitted into existing data centers, and cheaper and easier to build. In a colocation environment, the data center module is a data center within a data center, with its own steel walls and security protocol, and its own cooling and power infrastructure. “A number of colocation companies have praised the modular approach to data centers to better match customer demand with physical build outs, and allow customers to buy a data center as a service, paying only for what they consume.”
Colocation facilities have many other special characteristics:
•Fire protection systems, including passive and active elements, as well as implementation of fire prevention programmes in operations. Smoke detectors are usually installed to provide early warning of a developing fire by detecting particles generated by smouldering components prior to the development of flame. This allows investigation, interruption of power, and manual fire suppression using hand held fire extinguishers before the fire grows to a large size. A fire sprinkler system is often provided to control a full scale fire if it develops. Clean agent fire suppression gaseous systems are sometimes installed to suppress a fire earlier than the fire sprinkler system. Passive fire protection elements include the installation of fire walls around the space, so a fire can be restricted to a portion of the facility for a limited time in the event of the failure of the active fire protection systems, or if they are not installed.
•19-inch racks for data equipment and servers, 23-inch racks for telecommunications equipment
•Cabinets and cages for physical access control over tenants’ equipment
•Overhead or underfloor cable rack (tray) and fibreguide, power cables usually on separate rack from data
•Air conditioning is used to control the temperature and humidity in the space. ASHRAE recommends a temperature range and humidity range for optimal electronic equipment conditions versus environmental issues. The electrical power used by the electronic equipment is converted to heat, which is rejected to the ambient air in the data centre space. Unless the heat is removed, the ambient temperature will rise, resulting in electronic equipment malfunction. By controlling the space air temperature, the server components at the board level are kept within the manufacturer’s specified temperature and humidity range. Air conditioning systems help keep equipment space humidity within acceptable parameters by cooling the return space air below the dew point. Too much humidity and water may begin to condense on internal components. In case of a dry atmosphere, ancillary humidification systems may add water vapour to the space if the humidity is too low, to avoid static electricity discharge problems which may damage components.
•Low-impedance electrical ground
•Few, if any, windows
Colocation data centres are often audited to prove that they live up to certain standards and levels of reliability; the most commonly seen systems are SSAE 16 SOC 1 Type I and Type II (formerly SAS 70 Type I and Type II) and the tier system by the Uptime Institute or TIA. For service organizations today, SSAE 16 calls for a description of its “system”. This is far more detailed and comprehensive than SAS 70’s description of “controls”. Other data center compliance standards include Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) audit and PCI DSS Standards.
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