Atlanta, Georgia October 1, 2009 – Web hosting colocation facility, Global-Enterprise, has finished expanson on its Enterprise Data Center 2, by adding an additional 5,000 square feet of available space and is now available for occupancy.

The new Atlanta colocation space has biometric authentication and all of the cutting-edge, yet cost effective features that other enterprise clients have come to expect from the Global-Enterprise. The new Data Center was built and designed by Verizon with the enterprise customer in mind, as it contains 24 inch raised floors and state-of-the-art high density power capability and hot air containment.

Michael George, President of the Atlanta colocation company remarked, ”The expansion will serve strong demand from Fortune 1000 enterprise clients for active and disaster recovery space. As the economy has deteriorated, many CIOs are more concerned about their budgets and are optimizing their use of space with the Global-Enterprise. They minimize costs for the level of operations excellence they receive and are able to apply this budget to other critical areas in their department. It also allow for a redirection of capital outlay into a monthly expense, allowing the company to efficiently continue operations in this environment of tight capital.”

Mr. George added, ”We believe this will bring in additional enterprise and corporate colocation customers who are looking for the best facility, security and service that is offered in the industry. Global-Enterprise boasts network IDS/IPS, private VPN services, Gigabit back-end private network and physical security systems consisting of key carded entry, redundant security camera servers, biometric fingerprint scanning, and 24/7/365 lobby security guards.”

With more than ten years in the industry, Global-Enterprise are trusted by thousands of customers that span almost every country in the world. It primarily operates out of its parent company SiteSouth, which operates in three state of the art colocation data center facilities located in Atlanta,GA and Las Vegas, NV.

Atlanta colocation
http://www.global-enterprise.com

How to Choose a Data Center Part 1

I’ve been asked by a number of people to put together a small piece on how to choose a data center. We are lucky in that we are located in 3 different data centers and have probably looked at 20 to 30 other data centers located throughout the US.

1.The Building Security
You want to see a building that has quality security systems and staff. I want to see some form of man trap with some type of biometric or scanned ID card system at any entrance to the data center. This prevents just anyone from walking in any door. After the man traps I want to see a 24/7 security guard and some type of video camera system for the building and the data center. In the better facilities, when you get on the elevator you have to do another swipe of your card again just to get to your floor. This is good security, it stops someone who is not authorized to be on your floor or area from getting off where they have no business. Once you are on your floor you should look to see if it has video cameras that cover the entire floor. You may need to have your card scanned once more or have another form of checked access. After that you want to make sure your racks or caged area has a secure lock. In one of our data centers you have to go through multiple security scans of one kind or another plus a guard and then a lock on the cage space and/or the cabinets to get to your servers. You will be also covered by cameras from the second you enter the building to the time you leave. Is this to much? No not at all. When you are dealing with either customer data or customer equipment you must show that you are providing the best possible security. One of our largest clients is a medical facility. We were told we got the contract to host 30 servers for them because we had the best physical security. I don’t care what data center you are in they should have a minimum of 2 security/ID scans, 24 hour video and at least one 24/7 security person, A tech is not a security person.

2.Power System
Initial Power: In the ideal situation the data center should be connected to 2 city power grids with multiple entry points from each grid to the building. This usually only happens in major cities in downtown districts where there is the normal power distributed to the area plus an additional power grid that is meant to support emergency services such as government or medical facilities. Even if the data center is only on a single power grid, which is most common, you want to make sure it has multiple entry points for power. I’ve seen several data centers that if a truck ran in to the wrong pole, or a fire started or a construction accident occurred in the underground pipes, the entire datacenter would be without power for a number of days because it was only routed one way.

The power distribution panel(s) need to be clearly marked and ID’d. Ideally the data centers network equipment will be separate from the client’s equipment. Each rack should have 1 or 2 breakers or power switches that are exclusive to that rack. General electrical outlets or public outlets should not be on the same distribution panels as networks or servers.

Generators: If a datacenter doesn’t have its own generators and fuel storage don’t host there. It’s that simple. The generator should be able to handle at least 125% of the load for a minimum of 24 hours without being refueled. A really great data center will have multiple generators. One of our data centers has an individual generator for each floor and two backups. The building can route power from any generator to any location in the building and they can transfer fuel from any generator to another.

One thing you want to do and see for yourself is that they test the generator system. I’m not talking just starting it up but that they actually put part of the data center load on the generator. I’ve asked about a dozen of the data centers we’ve looked at to allow me to be there when they did their “weekly” test of the system. It was funny how they hemmed and hawed and came up with excuses why I couldn’t be there to see the system tested. If they won’t let you watch them go through their testing it should tell you they are probably not doing more than just starting the generator and hoping the rest works in an emergency. That’s just not good enough to tell you if the generator system is really working or not.

PDU/UPS: Every cabinet should have its own PDU. It should run a minimum of 10 minutes with a full load. It can often take generators or other systems a full 10 minutes to come on line. Ask to see the batteries of the PDU. The terminals or poles should be clean and without any corrosion or other stuff on them. Most batteries these days have dates stamped on them. Make sure they are no older than 2 years old. Ask the data center how often the replace or update their battery farm. The better brands are Liebert, MGE and Powerlink.

Power Monitoring: A good data center has some form of dedicated power monitoring system. The system should monitor the status of an SNMP-equipped UPS system over a standard Ethernet network. Additionally, the software should be programmed to automatically shut down network loads upon power failure, and even send alerts to notify personnel of power problems. It should also be possible to remotely control specific UPS output receptacles on single-phase UPS systems. The better systems will provide audio alerts, emails and SMS messaging

Atlanta colocation
http://www.global-enterprise.com
More to come.

Global-Enterprise has completed testing and setup of the new 1 Gb VPN system which allows clients to access their entire backend network from a secure out-of-band location. Basic VPN service is included with every quarter cabinet or larger colocation plan, which includes a single user account and a minimal bandwidth cap for emergency access and management uses. The Atlanta colocation VPN network also spans across data centers in multible locations, should a Global-Enterprise client have equipment in different Global-Enterprise data centers, the VPN operates seemlessly as one large network.

The Global-Enterprise VPN system is compatible with all common operating systems and firewalls that support industry standard VPN encryption protocols.

Clients requiring additional accounts or a dedicated remote VPN service can contact sales for a custom solution. The Global-Enterprise VPN system can easily scale to support multiple remote offices and mobile users requiring access to the backend network.

We are happy to announce the arrival of new colocation cabinets. We offer 1/4, 1/2 or full private locking colocation cabinets / racks. Each cabinet section is independent of others. No risk of someone accidentally unplugging or interfering with your equipment. Each section includes a 10 outlet metered power outlet.

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Atlanta, Georgia July 12, 2009 – Web hosting colocation facility, Global-Enterprise, will expand its Enterprise Data Center 2, by adding an additional 5,000 square feet of available space. The expansion will be completed and available for occupancy on June 1, 2009.

The new space has biometric authentication and all of the cutting-edge, yet cost effective features that other enterprise clients have come to expect from the Global-Enterprise. The new Data Center was designed with the enterprise customer in mind, as it contains 24 inch raised floors and state-of-the-art high density power capability and hot air containment.

Michael George, President of the company remarked, ”The expansion will serve strong demand from Fortune 1000 enterprise clients for active and disaster recovery space. As the economy has deteriorated, many CIOs are more concerned about their budgets and are optimizing their use of space with the Global-Enterprise. They minimize costs for the level of operations excellence they receive and are able to apply this budget to other critical areas in their department. It also allow for a redirection of capital outlay into a monthly expense, allowing the company to efficiently continue operations in this environment of tight capital.”

At the completion of this expansion, an additional 5,000 sq feet will be built and on-line. There is currently 2,800 sq feet available for immediate occupancy in Data Center 2.

Mr. George added, ”We believe this will bring in additional enterprise and corporate customers who are looking for the best facility, security and service that is offered in the industry. Global-Enterprise boasts network IDS/IPS, private VPN services, Gigabit back-end private network and physical security systems consisting of key carded entry, redundant security camera servers, biometric fingerprint scanning, and 24/7/365 lobby security guards.”

With more than ten years in the industry, Global-Enterprise are trusted by thousands of customers that span almost every country in the world. It primarily operates out of its parent company SiteSouth, which operates in three state of the art data center facilities located in Atlanta,GA and Las Vegas, NV.

http://www.global-enterprise.com