Collocation and Construction: Is It Right for Your Business?

I recently spoke to about 150 construction executives in a round table format regarding their technology concerns and opportunities.

My goal: to make this an open forum to ask questions, raise concerns and learn from each other. Although most participants understood that computers and technology were important to their businesses, they did not understand technology’s overall impact. Most still regarded technology as a cost of doing business rather than considered it a part of their business.

Let’s define technology as in-house systems, networking, security and hosting services. Most of the forum participants understood that laser guided concrete spreaders and electronic earth movers were important to the No. 1 goal of building a building. But the data and information that the back office needs to run the business is as important as what the guys building the building require. The challenge is how to get back office functionality to the project managers and field personnel that require these resources. 

In my business one of the most popular methodologies to deploying, managing and securing back office resource is in our collocation or hosting division. Technology management is so important that you want and need someone who is familiar with the uniqueness of the construction industry but can serve your technology needs and support the technology initiatives that impact the jobs and the people in the field.

Why has the popularity of collocation or hosting become so popular? Historically, as our businesses have grown, we add a computer here and there. Eventually we decide to upgrade to a server, then two servers, then three servers. The next thing we know, we have gone from a couple of computers and an IT guy, to a large infrastructure with multiple servers and a complete staff of IT professionals. As this infrastructure of hardware, software and people grows, we find ourselves managing an IT department where we can become divided between cost and performance.

The technology industry has become so fragmented that the days of having the one superstar IT professional are over. We now have security professionals, networking professionals, server professionals and communications specialists. This trend is driven by the complexity and the demands of organizations to be competitive and reduce costs, while making workers as productive as possible. The downside is that we now have created high cost IT staffing requirements to support the entire organization. Of course our other option is to reduce costs and expect less experienced IT people to handle a complex situation which results in underperforming IT departments, lower productivity, increased long term costs and end user dissatisfaction.

Collocation in construction has proven to be a very productive, secure and cost effective manner to deploying and managing technology resources. Collocation can relieve your organization of the burden of being a technology support company. When you examine some of the advantages of collocation such as: total cost of ownership, maintenance and management, scalability, data security, reliability, protection and future proof, collocation can bring to your organization resources that you need in a bundled service.

Total cost of ownership can vary from company to company. First we need to look at factors such as facility cost, physical space, hardware costs, software costs, air conditioning, fire protection, redundant power and the human cost of maintaining an internal IT staff. Collocation can offer your organization a methodology that can release your business from these costly burdens and provide you with better resources while reducing cost. Better yet, partnering with a total managed service company that can manage all your hardware and software assets, provide a secure collocation environment and provide end user support that would in fact increase the return on your investment and lower your total cost of ownership.

Maintenance and Management is a key operational and selection point when you are selecting a collocation hosting company. You want to insure that you are trusting your data and systems to an organization that has a proven track record of providing technology managed services around a collocation environment. This can be a difficult solution for many organizations to provide in a hosted environment. However, from a user’s perspective, this is the key. We need to balance the monitoring and management of the servers for performance, failures, updates along with providing end users the support and direction they need to maximize the use of the hosted environment.

Scalability

Scalability should be an engineering factor that is considered when you select a hosting company. What you don’t want is to continuously have to redesign your system as your business changes. Systems should be designed so they are easily scalable to the ever-changing requirements of your business. Hosting companies should be able to design and engineer systems that grow and shrink with the requirements of your business in a cost effective manner.

Security

Data security in today’s electronic world should be the highest priority. I hear all the time that employees are our biggest asset. True, but false. Yes, employees make our businesses go, and, yes, without them it would be impossible to build the building, bill our customers or provide that personal service to our clients. However, when it comes to the business, what is the grease that makes our business run? It is our data, and without it, we are simply starting over from scratch. The dynamics of security can be very different in a collocation or hosted environment. The first layer of protection is the physical layer and the second is electronic security.

Does the center have limited access to the outside? Limiting access is critical to insuring that only people who are suppose to be there have access to the data floor within the center.

Does the center provide guards and sign in sheets? It is, from a security standpoint, critical to know who and when people are in the data center. There are many ways to extract data off a server if you have physical access to that server. Billions of dollars are lost due to computer espionage-people want your data.

My company performs technology audits. As part of that audit, we perform a physical security breach to determine how deep into your building we can get. An organization had a front desk person with controlled doors; however their employees often entered through a side door. I was able to follow an employee through the door once they had it opened. All I did was hold a simple conversation as we were walking into the building. Once into the building, I explained to the maintenance guy that we had replaced a server, and I needed a cart to carry the old server out to my truck. The employee gladly provided me with a cart, allowed me to disconnect the server and even helped me load it into my truck. Now,this is an extreme example and many times I am not as successful, but all I needed to know was the owner’s name and important players within the organization and access was easily gained.

How is access controlled, tracked and monitored? Our center utilizes biometric hand scanners to add an additional level of security. Biometric hand scanners can detect body temperatures and pulse rates, and determine if someone who has legitimate access to the center is being forced under distress to allow unauthorized access to the server floor. This is an important aspect because there is a lot of valuable hardware, software and data within the center that needs to be controlled.

Where is the data center physically located? You don’t want the center in a hurricane zone or a high fire zone. You also want to insure that the center is not in a back room of an office or someone’s garage. You also want to make sure that there is not a sign on the outside of the building announcing what is housed within the data center. High end data centers should be non-conspicuous in nature. They don’t want to draw any more attention than they have to.

Electronic security is mission critical. Within the design and engineering phases, you should specifically look for how your data is going to be isolated and protected. What kind of firewall protection is the hosting company using? Are they using industry level firewalls, core firewalls and individual firewalls? What is the overall configuration of the initial protection from the outside?

Are they monitoring for external intrusion detection? One of the rules of security is knowing your risk. You need to know who is looking at you, so you can watch and take countermeasures to insure that your data is protected. This is not simply a data center function, you should be doing this regardless if your data is hosted or collocated or if your system is internal to your business and building.

Security was an interesting subject in the round table. I had more than one participant say, “Who would want my data? If they want it, they can have it. What would they do with it anyway?” This is exactly the attitude that has created a multibillion dollar business of buying and selling stolen data. Your data is worth something to someone, and you don’t want your information out in the world. There are people who buy and sell data for a living. It is a big business, and we need to realize that we have to start protecting ourselves and our organizations. When you think about what your data includes: customer names, bank account information, social security numbers, employee names and addresses, pricing, marketing, project lists, etc. People are willing to pay for that information. An example of this was reported on Secure Computing magazine’s website in October 2008. The FBI and international partners arrested fifty-six individuals for buying and selling data off a website. Although only fifty-six were arrested, the site had over 2,500 members.

Collocation facilities are classified by tiers and if you are considering collocation or hosting, understanding the tiers is important in selecting a data center. The differences may seem small in some cases, but the investment required by the owners of the centers in order to reach the next tier is sizeable and does have an impact on the overall performance of the center.

Tier 1: Collocation or hosting centers typically have a single path for power, meaning one power feed runs off a single power grid and cooling distribution center. They are limited in their ability to provide redundant components such as air conditioning, power, fire suppression and data feeds with availability typically around 99.5 percent.

Tier II: Collocation or hosting centers are typically configured with a single feed for power and a single feed for cooling distribution. They will have some components that are redundant, with availability around 99.7 percent.

Tier III: Collocation or hosting centers that are composed of multiple power grids feeding the building and multiple cooling distribution paths. They typically only have one path active at a time. The center will have redundant components, and those systems have the ability to be concurrently maintained with availability around 99.9 percent.

Tier IV: Collocation or hosting centers that are composed of multiple active power systems and power grids, multiple active cooling distribution paths and systems, have redundant components with built in fault tolerance. This allows availability to reach or exceed 99.995 percent.

Determining if collocation or hosting is right for your business can be a difficult decision. Transferring the burden of support and hardware maintenance while increasing productivity due to uptime and performance increases along with security and reliability could bring a lot of bang for the buck to your business. The popularity of hosting or collocating is increasing exponentially due to the current economic conditions and the overall need to save money wherever you can. And though hosting can save you money, it can also continue to provide your organization with the necessary electronic tools to build and maintain your business. 

Construction Business Owner, January 2009