"We Have Our Own Data Centre"
No you don’t. It’s a broom cupboard that you put your router in when you first set your office up.
Then you added a switch, maybe a firewall. Then maybe a server or two. Then you noticed it was getting mighty warm in that cupboard, so you bought an air conditioning unit from Viking, took the brooms and the mops out of the cupboard, and kept the air conditioner on 24/7. This created problems in itself of course, because domestic air conditioners have a huge exhaust hose that disperses hot air, so you need to get rid of that hot air somehow.
So a window now needs to be kept permanently open for the hose to extend to, but the hoses on these domestic units are always too short, so you balance the air conditioner on a chair to stretch the hose out of the window.
Then somebody has the bright idea: “hey, seeing as we’ve gone to the trouble of building this Data Centre, why don’t we get a second-hand cabinet, put our kit in there, and rent out the remaining space?”
Before you know it, that air conditioner (and the huge amount of power going through the domestic plug socket and two four-way leads from Currys) will have paid for itself.
You don’t have your own Data Centre.
“We Have Our Own Data Centre” Part Two
No you don’t. You rent a rack, or two racks, or a suite, in somebody else’s Data Centre.
Your MD doesn’t sleep properly at night because you’re committed to all this empty space and paying for it, day on day, while you try and fill the empty space. If somebody needs access to the racks, they need to contact you, you need to contact the Data Centre and arrange access. If something goes seriously wrong at the Data Centre you know you’ll be the one tasked with schlepping up to Docklands in the middle of the night.
You use words like “partnering” and “collaborating” and “working in conjunction with”.
You’re not. You’re renting space and subletting it, one U at a time. Because you’re subletting from a data centre, the margins you’re forced to work to, in order to remain competitive, are minimal, so promotion of the Data Centre becomes a lower priority for the business, which creates more pressure to sell the space, which is leaking your business cash, day on day.
You don’t have your own Data Centre.
