How To Choose A Baltimore Data Center

Once a major industrial city, Baltimore is now a hub of science, technology, engineering, and mathematics. It’s also a convenient base from which to serve other key business hubs. With that in mind, here is a quick guide to what you need to know about implementing a Baltimore data center.

Why choose a Baltimore data center?

For many organizations, the main reason for choosing a Baltimore data center is the strategic benefit of being in Baltimore. The city provides easy access not just to Maryland but also to major economic (and political) hubs outside the state. These include Washington, D.C., and Philadelphia.

Baltimore also has excellent digital and physical infrastructure plus relatively easy access to skilled workers. It also benefits from a moderate climate and a high level of safety. Although Baltimore does have a reputation for crime, this tends to be very localized. It also tends to be on a small scale rather than major civil unrest.

How to choose a Baltimore data center

Here are the 10 key points you should check when choosing a Baltimore data center.

The type of data center

There are four main types of data centers. These are enterprise, colocation, managed-services, and cloud. Some data centers can support more than one service type. For example, a colocation data center vendor may also be able to offer a managed-services solution. Ideally, you should define upfront, what type(s) of data center you need now and how this may change in the future.

Support for compliance programs

Most organizations are going to find themselves within the remit of at least some compliance programs. They may also need to expand the number of compliance programs they support as their business develops. Given that compliance, by its nature, is non-negotiable, it makes sense to check a facility’s support for it early in the selection process.

Security measures

All data centers require effective protection against both physical and digital threats. In the case of Baltimore data centers, this includes ensuring climate resilience. At a high level, Baltimore has a fairly moderate climate. It is, however, vulnerable to occasional heavy snowfall and also to flooding.

Reliability

The basic measure of reliability is uptime. Any reputable Baltimore data center vendor should be prepared to give an enforceable uptime guarantee. They should also be able to show their historical performance data and, ideally, a tier rating as well.

Part of maintaining uptime is having robust processing in place for managing business continuity and disaster recovery. Again, any reputable Baltimore data center vendor should be happy to explain what measures they have in place.

Location and connectivity

Location and connectivity are strongly related. If you want to offer the very fastest service to your users, you need to be near either a network hub or your users themselves. Ideally, you will be close to both. With that said, if you do not need the very fastest network connections, then moving further away from a network hub can save you a lot of money.

Network infrastructure

To make the most of your available network connectivity, you will need a Baltimore data center with robust network infrastructure. It’s also advisable to check the vendor’s support for carrier-neutrality, interconnectivity, and multicloud architecture.

Energy and climate control

In a modern Baltimore data center, ensuring there is a reliable source of energy is not usually an issue. The issue is ensuring that the energy is used as efficiently (and hence economically) as possible. Some organizations may also prioritize data centers that use sustainable energy sources.

Likewise, effective climate control should not be an issue but, as always, it’s better to check than to assume.

Customization and scalability

One size does not fit all (at least not perfectly) and what fits perfectly now is not guaranteed to fit perfectly in the future. It’s therefore highly preferable for a Baltimore data center vendor to have strong support for both customization and scalability.

Vendor quality

No matter how good a Baltimore data center may be, if the vendor behind it is not committed to delivering excellent service, you will probably have a poor experience of using it. It’s therefore important to evaluate the vendor thoroughly.

In addition to checking online reviews and customer testimonials, you should spend time directly interacting with their staff. You should also check what former employees have to say about them.

Cost and pricing structure

While headline costs are important it’s equally important that a Baltimore data center vendor has a transparent pricing structure. When pricing structures are opaque, organizations can find it very difficult to forecast their costs. It’s very much preferable if their pricing structure has some flexibility in it.