Chicago Data Center: Evaluating Support And Monitoring Services

To maintain maximum availability, a Chicago data center must support and monitor your critical operations from just about anywhere. Mission critical services require sophisticated and proactive management to help your IT team address any situation.

Data center solutions offer many flavors of services. With your systems availability at stake, how do you evaluate support and monitoring services? How can you be assured these services measure up?

By focusing on the following criteria, you'll find the right data center solution and position your company for peak IT performance.

Around-the-Clock Support

When evaluating a Chicago data center, you should expect continuous help from experts with successful industry track records. Services must include 24/7/365 support and be customized to your company's specific requirements. An accomplished data center provider will work with your company engineers to design a flexible solution to accomplish your IT goals.

Remote Services Let You Focus on Your Business

The right Chicago data center partnership will free your IT staff from a variety of functions - from routine tasks to troubleshooting. Working remotely, your data center provider should perform day-to-day services like rebooting a server or inspecting equipment. Remote services eliminate the need for you to drive to the data center to perform a simple job.

Supporting and monitoring your network remotely is another important evaluation criterion for a Chicago data center. When you're experience server issues or Internet downtime, you need expert troubleshooting immediately. You also want your data center provider to add or remove equipment and manage operating system changes. Performing these functions remotely helps keep your systems available continuously.

World-Class Network Operations Center

A well qualified Chicago data center will offer an advanced network operations center (NOC) staffed by highly trained experts. These experts should be available around-the-clock to assist when needed.

A data center's monitoring systems are just as important as the IT equipment they monitor. You want systems in place to alert data center staff immediately of any issues before they become critical or affect availability. Your Chicago data center should also provide high level monitoring to track trends and SLA conformance.

Because critical systems require constant, accurate and reliable monitoring, you also want real-time data at your disposal. For example, your Chicago data center should provide relevant information on temperature and humidity conditions, UPS loads and maintenance logs. Your critical IT systems should be monitored for status changes, trouble and alarm conditions, and electrical and mechanical situations.

Basically, you want every system component to be monitored to ensure stability. Any change in condition of any component should send alerts to data center staff. A highly skilled data center staff will have standard response procedures in place. Technicians will respond immediately to status changes and return the systems to normal operating status.

Major physical threats to your IT equipment include the following list. Although built-in capabilities may exist for some components, each physical component must be monitored continuously by data center experts to avoid system downtime.

-Power -- A UPS system, for example, typically monitors things like power quality, load and battery health. Power delivery units monitor circuit loads. However, a qualified data center staff will interpret monitoring data to determine the appropriate actions.

-Cooling -- Cooling units monitor input and output temperatures and filter status.

-Humidity - Threats of poor humidity levels can be anywhere in the data center and aren't identified easily through built-in monitors. So, a data center's staff must be knowledgeable about the impact of humidity on IT equipment. They must decide on the most effective number and placement of humidity sensors to adequately monitor and manage humidity threats.

-Fire - Fire suppression systems are required by building codes. They monitor the Chicago data center environment for smoke and heat.

From resolving issues quickly over the phone to remote hands-on equipment service, your data center provider should create a worry-free IT environment.