Does data center location matter?
- What is a data center
- Does data center location matter
- Considerations when choosing a data center location
Business owners wouldn’t want to overlook choosing a well-equipped data center location. The question that crosses many business owner’s minds today is: Does data center location matter?
When the COVID-19 pandemic broke out, the majority of the world migrated online, accelerating the need for faster data processing. The amount of data in the world was estimated at 44 zettabytes in 2022. By 2025, this amount is expected to reach 463 exabytes. Why? Students began to attend online classes, employees adapted to work-from-home settings, companies adopted digital operating models to maintain operations, mobile applications were developed to mitigate the spread of the pandemic, and researchers used artificial intelligence to learn more about the virus and come up with a vaccine, and e-transactions spiked unprecedented.
The pandemic played a major role in worldwide digital transformation and the need for massive data storage, computing, and distribution. Now more than ever, companies need to set up a data center to maintain their operations and serve clients. By having a better understanding of what a data center is and why a data center location is important, you can make informed decisions that will set up your organization for success.
What Is A Data Center?
A data center is defined as a building or dedicated physical facility that is utilized to house a large group of networked computer servers and other crucial components that make enterprise-grade data storage, computing, security, and distribution possible. Inside a data center, you might see racks, routers, switches, firewalls, backup devices, and application controllers.
There are approximately 2.5 quintillion bytes of data generated every day worldwide, but that pace only continues to accelerate due to the growth of the Internet. To cope with the rapid developments in technology and the enormous data and bandwidth requirements, businesses across diverse industries need to set up dedicated data centers outside of their firm. Today, there are different types of centers including enterprise data centers, colocation data centers, wholesale data centers, cloud data centers, and hyper-scale data centers.
Does Data Center Location Matter?
If you’re wondering if data center location matters, the short answer is yes. What many businesses fail to remember is that the performance of data centers is highly dependent on their location and environment.
Data center location influences network latency, security, connectivity, and more. With so many factors to keep in mind, business owners must choose the right data center location. This is the key to avoiding unstable connections, unplanned operational downtime, loss of business, and huge costs. Below are some of the factors to consider to ensure you choose the right data center location.
Considerations When Choosing A Data Center Location
Reliable Bandwidth
One of the most crucial considerations when choosing a data center location is access to a reliable bandwidth. There is no doubt that the only solution to receive reliable bandwidth at the volumes needed by an enterprise-grade data center
is to create multiple connections with different network providers.
The right data center location will have multiple redundant fiber connections to major network providers. This is the key to making your data center less reliant on an individual network provider, resulting in reliable connectivity and continuous up-time.
If you plan to set up a data center in the Philippines, choosing the Light Industry & Science Park IV (LISP IV) of Science Park Of The Philippines in Malvar, Batangas as your data center location can help your operations remain productive.
Science Park of the Philippines partnered with two major network providers in the Philippines, PLDT and Globe. As a result, data centers located in the Light Industry & Science Park IV benefit from fiber-optic connectivity with bandwidth speeds of up to 10Gbps.
Network Latency
When a user visits a certain page on your website, their computer needs to communicate with the service to access files. The data will need to be transferred from the server to the user’s computer.
Unfortunately, if your servers are far away from the user, data will need to travel farther. Network latency problems can arise and the website pages may take longer to load.
Geographical distance impacts network latency. Fortunately, at Science Park of the Philippines, we have partnered with major network providers that have facilities that cluster together at Internet exchange points or peering points. When a data center is located close to Internet exchange points, the business ultimately benefits from low network latency.
Reliable Power Supply
A data center power outage is perhaps one of the greatest nightmares of business owners nowadays. This results in operational downtime, frustrated users, and enormous costs. The costs can go up even more if bringing back the power takes any longer.
Thus, an important consideration when choosing a data center location is access to a reliable energy supply. Fortunately, the Light Industry & Science Park IV is fully equipped to be the location of data centers as it can offer a reliable power supply through a 100MVA substation. This substation is designed to have a dual 69kV source from the national grid and an in-looped configuration of the feeder lines
Natural Disaster Resilience Systems
Generally speaking, natural disasters like flooding, fire, lightning, earthquakes, and landslides are only going to threaten data centers’ network connection or power supply.
LISP IV is designed to efficiently manage stormwater discharge by allowing it to pass through strategically located detention ponds around the industrial park making it flood-resistant and ideal for any manufacturing company. The industrial park also has an on-ground management team that offers training opportunities for locators’ fire response teams. This way, the teams will be educated on what to do during fire emergencies.
Key Takeaway
To cope with the huge data and bandwidth requirements, businesses are setting up dedicated data centers. If you’re a business owner who is wondering, “Does data center location matter?”, remember that the answer is yes. The right data center location will unlock benefits such as improved network latency, reliable power supply, reliable bandwidth, natural-disaster resilience, and overall, lower expenses.
At Science Park of the Philippines, we present an opportunity for business owners looking to set up a data center in a location that lessens risks and costly downtime. Click here to contact us!
