Although Salt Lake City is relatively small in size, it packs a mighty economic punch. One way for organizations to leverage this is to implement a Salt Lake City data center. Here is a quick guide to what you need to know about this.
The first major reason for choosing a Salt Lake City data center is that the “Crossroads of the West” serves as a central point between major business hubs in the western United States. In fact, Salt Lake City’s geographic location makes it accessible to businesses not only in Utah but also in neighboring states, including Nevada, Idaho, and Wyoming.
The second major reason for choosing a Salt Lake City data center is that Salt Lake City is a relatively low-risk environment. Environmentally, its climate is fairly mild. The area is definitely not prone to natural disasters such as hurricanes or earthquakes.
In a broader sense, Salt Lake City is economically stable and has a supportive business climate. This is very reassuring for businesses planning to implement key and/or long-term projects.
Whatever type of data center you’re interested in, there’s a Salt Lake City data center to suit your needs, wants, and budget. With that in mind, here is a quick guide to what to consider when choosing a Salt Lake City data center.
Many organizations will need to comply with certain data security compliance programs. For example, any organization that processes card payments will need to comply with PCI/DSS. This means that it’s often useful to establish your compliance needs before starting your search for a Salt Lake City data center. It’s also advisable to think about what the future might bring.
Additionally, it makes sense to think about what data security standards and/or frameworks you’d like to see implemented at the Salt Lake City data center you choose. For example, knowing that a data center is certified as ISO 27001- and/or SOC 2-compliant is a very reassuring signal.
A reputable data center in Salt Lake City should offer industry-standard guarantees and Service Level Agreements (SLAs) related to uptime. SLAs specify the level of service a client can expect and often include commitments to high availability percentages.
These agreements provide legal assurances and financial remedies in the event of unexpected downtime, ensuring that the data center is held accountable for meeting agreed-upon service levels.
Ideally, the data center vendor should be able to provide objective evidence that these guarantees can be met. The two main ways to do this are through its tier rating and through historical data.
Tier ratings are provided by the Uptime Institute. They measure factors that indicate resilience and, hence, reliability. Tier ratings go from 1 to 4 with higher numbers indicating higher reliability. Historical data is provided by the vendor but it may be possible to cross-reference it with other sources.
Data centers often host critical infrastructure and highly sensitive data. It’s therefore vital that they have robust physical and cybersecurity measures. Physical security measures need to protect against environmental threats as well as human ones.
Additionally, data centers need to be prepared for their defenses to be breached. This means they need solid incident response plans. They also need effective processes for business continuity and disaster recovery.
In the context of infrastructure, the four main points all organizations will need to check are power, cooling, network connectivity, and location.
Power and cooling are not particularly huge issues for a Salt Lake City data center. This is because the area’s infrastructure is robust and its climate fairly mild. Network connectivity and location, by contrast, are likely to be major considerations. They also tend to be strongly correlated.
In other words, data centers located near network hubs can typically offer the fastest connections with the lowest latency. Similarly, data centers located near key locations have an advantage when it comes to serving those locations.
Location is also closely correlated with accessibility. Choosing a Salt Lake City data center in a less accessible location may enhance security (and lower cost). It will, however, make accessibility more challenging for authorized personnel (and vice versa).
Before selecting a Salt Lake City data center, businesses should conduct a thorough assessment of their scalability needs. This involves projecting future growth, estimating resource requirements, and defining scalability criteria. This evaluation will form the basis of a formal agreement regarding scalability options.
By establishing this with the data center provider an organization can ensure that as its needs, wants and priorities change, the data center vendor will seamlessly adjust its service offering to accommodate them.
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