Part 2 in a 4-part series

 
Creating data centers based on green IT practices and greater energy efficiency requires more than legislation. In fact, both suppliers and customers must continue to refine their understanding, approaches and attitudes.

Equinix, for example, by virtue of its position as the world’s largest multi-tenant data center provider, as well as its overall energy consumption, must continue to be a steward for responsible energy usage. This requires balancing technology capabilities and its business requirements with customer and market demands.

As a result, Equinix works directly with technology manufacturers to develop more efficient, effective and robust technology, at less cost. Advances such as transformer-less UPS running in eco mode, with dramatically lower stand-by power consumption, do not happen in a vacuum.

Equinix also demands that its suppliers continue to reduce their own supply chain’s carbon footprint. Industry watchers estimate that 60% of a PC’s carbon footprint, for example, occurs before the device is powered on for the first time. Accordingly, Equinix demands constant improvements in its suppliers’ supply chain, as well as their suppliers’ practices, to minimize carbon consumption as much as possible.

Equinix's SV5 data center in Silicon Valley, California was built using some of the world's most sophisticated green technologies available today.

When constructing new IBX data centers, Equinix pursues capabilities and certifications that exceed current legislative requirements. Some types of IBX, for example, are well suited to LEED certification.

But achieving LEED certification, as Equinix has done with newer U.S. facilities – demands investing in capabilities which, while initially quite expensive, do deliver substantially better energy efficiency over the long term.

Equinix is also devoting substantial investment to retrofitting its existing data centers with the latest energy-saving technologies, to maximize energy savings and operational efficiency.

Finally, Equinix continues to invest in a number of specialist roles and predictive types of technology that would have been unthinkable even five years ago. These include operations analysts that liaise with legislators and study the industry’s operational best practices, and predictive modeling software to identify the best combination of variables – architecture, hardware, loads, cooling techniques, floor layout, and more – for maximizing energy savings and reliability.

Customers Must Rethink Requirements

However, increasing the use of green IT also demands something from customers. To begin with, they must rethink their requirements. Already, for example, many organizations are moving away from always running a 2N power and cooling system, since with today’s technology, N+1 topologies have been proven to consistently deliver 99.999%+ availability while dramatically decreasing hardware costs, energy consumption and total cost of ownership.

Organizations shouldn’t stop there.

For example, the typical RFP submitted to Equinix today requires a data center operating temperature of around 22ºC. This requirement is identical to RFPs from 10 years ago, even though IT vendor technology, design and tolerances have evolved substantially in that time. The latest EU ETSI guidelines, again, not developed in a vacuum, allow operating temperatures of up to 35ºC (95ºF) which, notably, is within the operating parameters of a blade server.

Beyond changes in operating temperature capabilities, consider the following:

• Facilities
  Small changes can produce significant energy savings. For example, Equinix is retrofitting its data centers, which globally comprise 550,000 square meters (6 million square feet) with motion-activated lighting systems, long-life LED and compact fluorescent lights that consume 75% less energy, and even waterless toilets.
• Eco-mode UPS
  Traditionally, all incoming power is routed through a UPS, which transforms it from AC to DC power and then back again, losing energy in the process. Today, however, eco mode enables AC power to flow directly to equipment, while still maintaining appropriate levels of reliability.
• Physical Separation
  Where Equinix has total design control, its engineers physically separate equipment according to its operating temperature tolerance, which notably decreases cooling requirements and thus power consumption.
• Containment
  Equinix has invested in the use of air containment systems (both cold and hot aisle types) where it is has been practical
  to do so, in order to maximize efficiency of the air management equipment as well as enable higher density computing deployments
• Blanking Plates
  Equinix always recommends that customers use cabinet blanking plates to maintain hot and cold airflow separation, and configure equipment correctly to maintain an optimal hot and cold airflow.

Rather than pursuing an abstract or potentially outdated ideal, always demand: What’s “good enough”? To help answer that question, Equinix employs data center engineers who are experts at configuring and deploying equipment for the best results. In addition, Equinix invests in operations analysts who, backed by state-of-the-art predictive tools, constantly research new techniques for increasing efficiency and decreasing power consumption.

So, too, businesses must constantly investigate what’s possible today. For a start, that means allowing wider temperature and humidity ranges, and tracking the latest available technology. Furthermore, remember that what works in an enterprise data center (or used to) isn’t always an optimal approach for larger data centers, which increasingly cater to virtualization and cloud computing.
 

Coming up in part 3: Green data center myths.

Related posts:

1. Europe Faces Green and Efficiency Tipping Point
2. There’s More to Data Centers Than Fancy Equipment and Security. Much More.
3. Mobile Networks Need Neutral Data Centers

Part 1 in a 4-part series

Spotlight on Energy Efficiency

Customers of European data centers face growing demands for compliance with environmental standards and for greater energy efficiency. Equinix is helping them navigate the new requirements, and seize the opportunities to improve energy efficiency, refine their green IT credentials, and cut costs.

• Artesian aquifers pulling hot and cold water from the ground in Amsterdam
• Transformer-less, uninterruptable power supplies (UPS) running in “eco mode”
• Managing heat using “grey water.” Deployment of variable frequency drive equipped CRAC systems.
• Use of free air cooling
• Deep lake water cooling in Toronto
• Segregating devices and equipment not by cage, but into physical zones, based on their cooling requirements

What do these operational approaches have in common?

All are providing significant benefits in terms of energy efficiency. And all have been deployed, or are being assessed for use, in Equinix International Business Exchange (IBX) data centers.

By virtue of its size, and its customers’ energy demands, Equinix is on the frontlines of the green IT and energy efficiency discussion. Indeed, with annualized revenues in excess of $1.2 billion, Equinix is the world’s largest network-neutral data center provider, operating in more than 38 markets and 13 countries. Backed by its significant investments in energy efficient technology and construction, operational improvements, and workforce development, Equinix enables its more than 4,000 customers to continually improve their energy efficiency and benefit from the latest advances in green IT.

For data center customers, embracing green IT and energy efficiency is far from optional. Indeed, in many organizations, thanks to rising power requirements, this issue is firmly on the boardroom agenda. In Europe especially, additional pressure is coming from both consumers and regulators, who are demanding more efficient and sustainableapproaches to energy consumption. And they want proof of compliance.

For example, based on the EU climate package, which builds on commitments made under the 1997 Kyoto Protocol,the UK Carbon Reduction Commitment (CRC) energy efficiency scheme requires companies to purchase carbon allowances to offset their year’s energy consumption.

Without a doubt, data centers, and therefore data center providers, have been attracting more scrutiny because they consume significant amounts of power. One of the sharpest indicators of this trend toward increased accountability comes by way of the United States, where the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has been developing an Energy Star rating system for data centers, so customers can compare their energy efficiency.

On a similar front, Switzerland singles out hydropower-based power production and green electricity offerings with its Naturemade Star label. (All four of Equinix’s Swiss IBX’s have earned this Naturemade Star certification.)

Demand for Outsourced Data Centers Soars

The call for greater energy efficiency comes at a time when outsourced data centers are seeing tremendous demand.  According to Tier1 Research, the multi-tenant data center market – worth $13.2 billion globally in 2010 – is set to reach $22.4 billion by 2013, growing by nearly 20% per year. (Source: Tier1 Research, “Multi-Tenant Datacenter Global Markets Overview – 2011)

What’s behind this growth?

IT departments are continuing to outsource their data centers, as “absolute control” increasingly gives way to “informed management,” especially over employee-owned devices, cloud-based applications, and commoditized IT infrastructure, wherever possible running virtualized environments.

Furthermore, the cost of building and maintaining a state-of-the-art data center and then replacing it every 10 years is becoming too expensive for enterprises to handle alone. Data center providers, by virtue of their scale, typically offer superior operating efficiencies and price points, especially when factoring in the cost of new construction. They also enable organizations to cost-effectively maintain the denser (but hotter and thus harder to cool) footprint demanded by highly virtualized environments. And they provide a highly skilled pool of engineers and specialists in whose knowledge and expertise the providers constantly invest.

Virtualization has rewritten businesses’ data center demands. One of Equinix’s customers, for example, reduced its number of physical servers from 300 to 94 (75% of which run virtualized environments), reducing related energy consumption by 75%. Together with cloud computing and increased mobility, these trends are freeing businesses from the requirement to locate servers physically within the enterprise walls. From a business standpoint, neutral co-location data center operators are better equipped to provide organizations with required computing resources, at less cost and greater efficiency.

Over the next few decades, Equinix expects these trends to intensify. Technology advances will make virtualized environments even more efficient and cost-effective, but at the same time, greater processing power density will result in server space generating much more heat. Increased use of mobile devices will demand a correspondingly greater infrastructure, drawing more power, to support mobility.

Finally, most market watchers expect cloud-based applications to soon shoulder the majority of enterprise IT requirements. As cloud-based applications bundle not just functionality, but also security and integration, organizations will increasingly demand (either directly or indirectly) more energy efficient data centers.

Europe Demands Sustainability and Accountability

Although the move towards greater efficiency in data centers is a global trend, Europe is far ahead in principle and practice. Already, a majority of Equinix’s European customers regard energy efficient practices not as an RFP checkbox, but as a buying decision.

Indeed, a study from Jones Lang LaSalle found that in Europe, data center efficiency comprises one of the top five buying criteria for data center customers. (Source: “The Jones Lang LaSalle Data Centre Barometer Survey” (Autumn 2010). Many of Equinix’s largest, public-facing customers regard green IT and energy efficiency as a data center provider “make or break decision.” Simply put, they can’t afford to be seen with business partners who don’t take sustainable practices seriously enough.

Already, organizations that have historically been early adopters of cutting-edge data center technologies and techniques are demanding greater green IT approaches and energy efficiency results. This is particularly true of the financial services sector. Cost concerns, increased scrutiny and business risks are driving organizations to create innovative business cases that budget for carbon costs and minimize their energy consumption profile.

Coming up in part 2:  The Equinix approach to responsible energy usage.

No related posts.

 
 
Alex Tam, Equinix Managing Director for Greater China, recently appeared on Radio Television Hong Kong Radio 1’s Finance New Concept program, where he talked about the history of data centers, recent developments and the future of the industry in the region.

Below are selected excerpts from the interview that were translated into English.

A recording of the interview is also available in Cantonese (mp3 audio file).

Q:  Many companies have been building their own data centers in Hong Kong over the last few years, why is that?

Data centers have been around since the advent of computers, although companies used to just put their servers at the back of their office. As information technologies advanced, more space was needed for more machines, so companies started building dedicated data centers. In fact, companies have been building data centers in Hong Kong for years. The main reason why the industry has attracted more attention in the last few years is because the Hong Kong Government has started promoting the industry as an area of growth.

Q:  What are Hong Kong’s advantages that enabled it to attract so many data centers?

Data centers need stable and adequate electricity supply as well as good backup power, and the power supply in Hong Kong is excellent. It rarely encounters minor electrical disturbances, let alone large-scale blackouts.

Another advantage is Hong Kong’s telecommunication infrastructure. Hong Kong is the hub of many cables and satellite links. Additionally, Hong Kong’s close proximity to China allows it to link up with China’s much better than other competing countries. This makes Hong Kong the perfect stepping-stone for multi-national corporations looking to enter the China market.

Data centers store a large volume of sensitive information, such as financial transactions and trade secrets, so security is very important. On top of good security, Hong Kong offers excellent macro conditions and political stability for a low risk business environment. Additionally, Hong Kong rarely suffers from major natural disasters like earthquakes, flooding or severe typhoons. All these factors make Hong Kong a very attractive location for building data centers.

Q:  So where in Hong Kong can we find data centers?

Most of the data centers in Hong Kong are located in traditional industrial areas like Tsuen Wan, Kwai Chung, Quarry Bay, Chai Wan and Kowloon Bay. There are also several new projects under development in Tseung Kwan O also.

Data centers are usually located in industrial areas because we need buildings with high floor-loading capacity as well as high ceilings to support our equipment, and industrial buildings would suit our needs perfectly. Another reason is the power infrastructure in industrial areas is more robust, this is important because our equipment consumes huge amounts of electricity.

Q:  Many of the traditional industrial areas, such as Kowloon Bay, are being redeveloped, is this why data centers are moving to new areas like Tseung Kwan O?

It has been getting more and more difficult to find suitable locations fairly close to the city center as some of the traditional industrial areas like Quarry Bay and Kowloon Bay are being redeveloped into commercial districts. Because Tseung Kwan O has been chosen as the site for HKEx and several other companies’ new data centers, it has received a lot of media attention, but it’s by no mean the only option. For example, Equinix has data centers in Kwai Chung and Tsuen Wan, where only relatively minor redevelopments are expected in the coming decade.

Q:  There are many vacant industrial buildings in Hong Kong, can they be converted into data centers?

Yes. In fact, that has been the direction of Hong Kong government’s policies in the last few years. These vacant industrial buildings are a large pool of land reserve. By encouraging multi-national companies to set up regional data centers in Hong Kong, not only does Hong Kong benefits from the inflow of capital and expertise, it will also boost employment and facilitate the development of IT talents.

Q:  How are data center customers charged? Usually, how long would the contract term be?

The contract term for smaller scale applications is usually 2 to 3 years. For larger scale applications or clients seeking business continuity, the contract terms would usually be 5 or even 10 years. Some clients do not need full-fledged service when they start, and would like to expand their service package step-by-step to match their business growth. For example, many cloud service providers are still in the development stage, and their needs for data center will grow as their business develops. We can fulfill their requirements and allow the service to expand accordingly. Contracts can be extended, and our clients do not need to commit to a high setup costs initially.

The fee would depend on the customer’s requirements, usually it would be calculated based on the number of cabinets required to house the customer’s equipment. On top of that, we need to consider their power consumption, which is calculated based on the number and computing power of their servers, we will also factor in their anticipated growth rate.

Q:  Singapore also shares many of Hong Kong’s advantages, how would you compare the two cities?

The Singapore government has done a great job in the past few years in promoting data center development. In terms of electricity supply, telecommunication infrastructure, political stability and low natural disaster risk, it is comparable to Hong Kong. Hong Kong’s main advantages over Singapore are its proximity to China and its excellent client system and flow of information.

Although the level of support provided by the Hong Kong government and the Singapore government are comparable, Hong Kong lacks active government supports on land and tax concessions as well as the convenience and supports that the Singapore government provides to foreign enterprises planning to set up operations there. Because the supports provided by the Hong Kong government are more passive and low-profile, players in the industry often do not realize what are available.

Q:  What is the outlook of the data center industry in China?

It is still in its infancy stage. Communication network is still a heavily regulated industry in China, and telecommunications is not as developed as in Hong Kong. Furthermore, electricity supply in remote areas is not stable, so multi-national corporations are only building data centers in major cities like Beijing, Shanghai and Guangzhou. Equinix currently operates a data centers in Shanghai to meet our clients’ needs.

Q:  As technologies progress, where do you see the data center industry in 5 to 10 years?

Some data centers built in the early days, which weren’t planned carefully, are a little outdated now. Their power supply and air-conditioning systems just aren’t able to cope with the new generations of machines, which consume two or three times more power than some of the older machines. But Equinix has been forward-looking when we built our data centers, which can be expanded to meet future demands.

Industry wide, some of the older data centers will be phased out and replaced by new ones. But I expect the total number of data centers will continue to increase. Unless information technologies stop advancing, I see strong growth in the industry.
 
 

Related posts:

1. Transforming Your Costly Data Center Infrastructure Into a Revenue Center (part 2)
2. Transforming Your Costly Data Center Infrastructure into a Revenue Center (part 1)
3. Transforming Your Costly Data Center Infrastructure Into a Revenue Center (part 3)

By Allan Graham (Part 5 in a 5-part series)

 
So far we have focused on the nuts and bolts of creating a business continuity plan (BCP). But actually developing and implementing a plan requires addressing several issues that go beyond the plan itself.

Here are 10 best practices that will focus your thinking and guide you toward a more successful BCP effort.

1. Get Management Buy-in

A must for every large-scale project that cuts across departments, broad management buy-in is crucial for BCP because it is essentially an investment in something you hope you’ll never use. To encourage buy-in, go beyond presenting just the potential damage to the company of not being prepared for a disaster by including RIO benefits of implementing the plan.

These include, for example, using the backup infrastructure for other purposes, such as training days or development testing (as long as these are pre-emptible), identifying obsolete or unneeded applications during the prioritization process, and having more flexible employees who are better trained in more activities vital to the organization, thus reducing recruiting and job transition costs.

2. Think Globally

As you develop your BCP and design your backup production facility, consider the ability to replicate the process globally to avoid having to start from scratch in each market. Are your key vendors available where you need them?

3. Think Ecosystem

When it comes to your trading room, think about how you connect to your ecosystem of critical data sources, counter parties and service providers. Ideally you will want to connect to as many possible inside the same facility to minimize network costs. At the same time, look for a backup site that has density of network providers as well, for connections that go outside the building.

4.  Prioritize

Simplify recovery by taking a tiered approach. Prioritize the processes and applications that must come online first, and design your plan so that the supporting infrastructure for these processes and applications become available first.

5. Regulatory or Audit Review

Ensure the recovery infrastructure will be consistent with all legal, regulatory and compliance requirements. This is especially critical for financial services firms that face mounting and evolving requirements.

6. Evangelize

As your plan takes shape, distribute it widely and make it available in multiple formats, including paper, PDF and web. Develop a system (e.g. regular meetings, email updates) to ensure that executives and managers are familiar with the plan, know how to access it, and understand their roles in triggering the plan and responding to a crisis.

7. Train

Today, a variety of resources exist that can provide additional information on BCP. These include articles, books, conferences, and local and global trade organizations. You can also consider enrolling in a certificate program.

8. Test

Design and run a variety of announced and surprise test scenarios. For example, you can regularly run through “tabletop exercises,” where you sit in a room, propose a disaster scenario, and discuss each person’s response activities. But then you can also occasionally initiate a surprise scenario. For example, you can announce that a bomb has just gone off in the basement, designate a number of people who are on vacation and hurt in the explosion, and then have everyone else implement the plan.

9. Plan Maintenance

People, business requirements, business facilities, partners, vendors, and regulations all change over time, resulting in the need to update the RTO, RPOs, recovery tiering strategy, roles and responsibilities, etc. You should design and maintain a rigorous reassessment schedule and update the plan accordingly.

10. Personnel Plan B

Make sure you have a second and third backup person trained for each critical response and recovery function (including yours) in the event that a primary individual is unavailable (i.e. out of town, on vacation, affected by the crisis). These functions include making the decision to trigger the plan, leading the internal communication effort, contacting vendors, and responding to the media.

Equinix – A Critical Business Continuity Partner

Through our global footprint of provider-dense data centers, Equinix offers robust and reliable backup infrastructure—both dedicated and shared—along with state-of-the-art business continuity trading rooms equipped with the latest workstations, dealer/trader desks, multiple  monitors, VoIP phones or trading turrets with voice recording, and various market data feeds. This backup infrastructure service includes all the people-related features to operate a mission-critical trading function, such as furniture, communications equipment, conference rooms, utility rooms and a pantry area.
 

Learn More About Business Continuity Trading Room (BCTR)

Related posts:

1. Successful Business Continuity Planning for Financial Services: Comprehensive BCP
2. Successful Business Continuity Planning for Financial Services: People, Data, and Voice
3. Successful Business Continuity Planning for Financial Services: Work Area Recovery

By Allan Graham (Part 4 in a 5-part series)

 
In part 3 of this series, we covered work area recovery issues related to creating a backup trading room facility. Now we look at issues related to protecting people and maintaining data and voice services.

People

No matter how sophisticated and fully equipped the backup production facility is, it’s of no value if the required people can’t get there in a crisis. And their ability to get to and effectively use the backup facility depends on a number of factors depending on the type of event:

• Commuting pattern – How far are employees currently traveling to work? How far would they have to travel to the backup facility? Is the facility close enough to be practical but far enough away to minimize the likelihood it would be caught up in the same event? Would the employees need to stay in hotels?
• Dependents – Do the employees have dependents that need to be accounted for during a crisis? What if the plan trigger is a snow storm or flood that closes local schools? How will the employees manage childcare and pet care? Are there childcare and kennel facilities located near the backup facility?
• Safety and comfort – Is the backup facility in a safe area? Does it provide creature comforts (access to food, clean restrooms, etc.) that will support sustained work effort?
• Crisis management – Will crisis management phone trees be operational? Will management be able to check in on employees to ensure they are safe and accounted for?
• Backup roles – “Eliminating a single point of failure” is an established practice for the IT infrastructure, but it is also important when it comes to people. No one person should be so vital to business operations that his or her lack of availability would prevent recovery. This requires that multiple people be trained for each critical operational role.

Data Services

In bringing data services to the backup facility, it is vital that the backup network infrastructure be as robust and reliable as your primary network infrastructure. It should be fully redundant and continuously monitored, and it should have no single point of failure. It should rely on multiple paths and multiple providers, so that if one provider is affected by the crisis or overloaded during the recovery, you have access to a second or third provider. To do this, make sure your backup infrastructure is located in a network-dense facility that provides the maximum options for connectivity.

Numerous options exist for ensuring application and data availability. These options are driven by three factors:

1. recovery targets (RTO/RPO)
2. technology in use
3. budget

Data replication technology and network bandwidth requirements vary greatly. For example, a company running a mission-critical trading application in production may choose to employ a geographically load-balanced active/active solution for its backup platform. This solution can instantly failover without a service interruption thanks to synchronous data replication over very high-speed data circuits. While a very low risk-option, it is quite expensive and technically complex.

By contrast, a company with a less critical email system to protect may choose periodic file “snapshot” replication running on a much slower network connection. Today many people are looking at the services offered by the burgeoning cloud market as a way to balance recovery targets and budgets. Ultimately, the difference in cost and technology used should be a cooperative effort between the business unit and the IT department under the guidance of the business continuity organization.

Financial services firms must maintain access to diverse market feeds. Just as you plan for a network-dense facility with the maximum options for network connectivity, make sure your backup facility can provide access to all the required market feeds.

Voice Services

Voice services are critical both to continuing business operations and to communicating during the immediate response to the crisis. Ensure your backup facility provides access to multiple telecom providers, and consider leveraging voice over IP (VoIP) services, which can provide voice communications over the more robust and flexible internet network in the event that the telephone system is not operating.

In the final post of this series, we’ll present 10 best practices that will help focus your thinking and guide you toward a more successful BCP effort.
 
 

Related posts:

1. Successful Business Continuity Planning for Financial Services: Work Area Recovery
2. Successful Business Continuity Planning for Financial Services: Comprehensive BCP
3. Successful Business Continuity Planning for Financial Services: Scope of BCP

By Allan Graham (Part 3 in a 5-part series)

In previous posts of this series, we examined the business drivers and scope of business continuity planning (BCP).

Now we turn to the specifics of work area recovery, and for financial services, the most critical work area is the trading room. What happens if the building that houses your production facility becomes inaccessible for an extended period of time?

In this event, your BCP must account for how and where an alternative production facility becomes established, how the required people will reach the facility, and how the required IT infrastructure, applications, and communications capabilities will be brought to the facility.

Facilities

Depending on the criticality of your production facility, your RTO/RPO, and your ROI analysis, you will need to decide among three basic options for your backup production facility.

Dedicated, Private Facility

A dedicated, private facility is the lowest-risk, fastest-recovery option. Such a facility is fully furnished, secure, and resilient. It is equipped with data and voice connections, includes a sufficient number of workstations for the number of people expected to work during the crisis and recovery, and provides access to all the mission-critical applications and materials they need to do their jobs.

For financial services firms, the a dedicated, private facility should be equipped with the latest workstation technology, including dedicated trader/dealer desks, multiple monitors, dealer boards (turrets) with voice recording, and connectivity to access to research, news and market data feeds, ticker plant, and order/trade management systems.

Because you are designing this space for people, it should include access to conference rooms, general office utilities (copiers, fax machines, printers, etc.), and pantry/lounge area.

Finally, the facility should satisfy all legal, regulatory, and compliance requirements, and be scalable to accommodate evolving needs during a prolonged crisis.

Shared Facility

A shared facility has the same capabilities as a dedicated, private facility, but the space is contractually shared with other companies. While less expensive than a dedicated, private facility, the space must be customized to the specific needs of each business at the time of a test or recovery (applications, access to private data, selected market feeds, etc.), which means that it will take longer for the facility to come online.

In addition, in a wider-area event, another business that shares the space may occupy the facility before you, preempting your progress toward recovery. If you choose this option, look at the other companies sharing your space to assess how likely it is that they will be caught up in the same event impacting your company.

Temporary Space

Many companies rely on temporary spaces for their recovery options; however such an approach carries with it a significant risk of a very slow time to recovery. In addition to the need to equip such a facility with the required furniture, technology, and connectivity—at a time when vendors may be overwhelmed by other requests stemming from the crisis—there may be issues related to security and meeting legal, regulatory, and compliance requirements.

Some companies’ work area recovery schemes rely on working from home or local cafes offering wifi, but such an approach carries the highest level of risk. While these sites may be sufficient for individuals needing to make phone calls and write reports, they are insecure, lack access to mission-critical applications, and especially for companies in financial services, put companies at risk of significant legal, regulatory and compliance violations.

However, it is possible to address the inherent lack of security and resiliency in the “work from home” approach if it is carefully developed to account for physical and data security, backup power, access to mission-critical applications, and legal, regulatory, and compliance requirements. Note that by the time all these aspects are managed for a sufficient number of people, it may be far more logistically complex and expensive to implement and manage than the dedicated, private approach, not to mention the inherent reduction in efficiency and ability to collaborate when taking a centralized people function and geographically dispersing it.

In part 4 of this blog series, we will continue to focus on work area recovery, taking up issues related to people, data services, and voice services.

Related posts:

1. Successful Business Continuity Planning for Financial Services: Comprehensive BCP
2. Successful Business Continuity Planning for Financial Services: Scope of BCP
3. Disaster Recovery: Past and Present

 
 
Ethernet Europe 2012 took place in Munich earlier this week and Equinix’s Jim Poole, General Manager of Global Networks and Mobility, was one of the featured speakers.

In a videotaped interview with Carol Wilson of Light Reading, Jim explains how exchange companies such as Equinix are becoming a critical part of the cloud ecosystem.
 
 

Learn more about Equinix’s Carrier Ethernet Exchange

Related posts:

1. Capacity Europe 2011: How Can Carriers Expand their Ethernet Footprint and Service Portfolio?
2. Carrier Ethernet World Congress 2011 – Kick Off
3. Equinix Carrier Ethernet Exchange: A Look Ahead

By Ephraim Baron

 
Any student of industrial history can tell you about the assembly line. Pioneered by Ford Motor Company, the idea was to improve manufacturing by division and optimization of labor. One of the keys to the assembly line’s success was the concept of interchangeability – the ability to make parts identical to the point that one could be swapped with another without impacting system quality.

In the software world, assembly lines and interchangeability morphed into software engineering and code reusability. Rather than hand-crafting every module and routine, a software coder relies on libraries of pre-built modules to assemble a finished product. Close examination of almost any codebase reveals that only a small fraction is original, but it forms the central glue that ties together the pre-built parts.

Fast-forward to today’s world of cloud computing and we find analogies to both manufacturing and coding. The focus of cloud providers today is to build highly-functional parts that can be consumed as services. By combining these services we can build, in essence, an information technology assembly line.

 

(Everything) as a Service

Cloud purists – if they exist in such a nascent world – divide the cloud into three main groupings:

• Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) – Abstracted facilities, compute, storage, and networking serving as a foundation for computing platforms
• Platform as a Service (PaaS) – A development platform including database, runtime, and development tools used to build applications
• Software as a Service (SaaS) – Application software consumed through a standard (typically web-based) interface rather than running locally

From this taxonomy, the sequential nature of cloud computing is clear:

• the IaaS bone’s connected to the PaaS bone
• the PaaS bone’s connected to the SaaS bone
• the SaaS bone’s connected to the user bone
• (Now hear the word of the Lord)

But what if we dig a little deeper?

Taking IaaS, for example, it’s possible to break the single service up into several components. To illustrate I’ll use a recognizable example, Amazon Web Services (AWS).

Within the IaaS category, they offer

• Compute – Elastic Compute Cloud (EC2)
• Block-based storage – Elastic Block Store (EBS)
• File-base storage – Simple Storage Service (S3)
• Domain Naming Service (DNS) – Route 53
• Load balancing – Elastic Load Balancing
• Monitoring – CloudWatch
• (and more)

Amazon does not offer a monolithic IaaS service; it offers many component services that can be used to form an IaaS environment. A user who only needs file-based storage can consume AWS S3 without having to purchase EC2. This leads to a best-in-breed – or, perhaps, commodity pricing – approach to cloud services. If I find a cheaper/faster/better component, I can swap it into my environment in much the same way that interchangeable parts are used in assembly lines or code libraries are used in software development.

Gathering Clouds

The model just described, where services can be assembled from a variety of parts, depends upon an active ecosystem of cloud providers. The analogy I frequently use is that of a general contractor and subcontractors. Before I build a house I need to gather an inventory of skilled tradespeople: surveyors, masons, carpenters, electricians, plumbers, roofers, etc. Some of these I may do myself, and the rest I’ll sub-out. Similarly, if I want to build a cloud-based application I need a matrix of services: hosting, compute, storage, networking, etc. By integrating best-in-breed components, I’m free to focus on my core strength and my greatest value-add.

This leads to the concept of “cloud hubs”, locations with a high density of service providers. Simply put, cloud hubs offer choice. They also make it much easier to connect services together. Say, for example, you have a great idea for an Electronic Health Records (EHR) application for small-to-medium practices. Your expertise is in software development for healthcare. Rather than running your own service delivery infrastructure, you want to work with one or more service providers.

Here’s how this might work in a cloud hub:

• Starting with a cloud management and automation platform, you design a service topology allowing you to deploy to one or more regions and/or cloud infrastructure vendors
• Using a provisioning tool, you provision initial compute capacity. This may include storage, or you might contract for storage with a different provider. It can also include auto-scaling features allowing your capacity to scale with your load.
• You add features like data bases, web servers, caching, and content management
• To ensure compliance, you add a security layer to ensure you meet HIPPA requirements
• You add an encrypted backup service for data protection and recoverability
• Using a disaster recovery service vendor, you replicate application data between multiple regions
• You add a big data vendor for business analytics and information management

Far-fetched? No.

All these things are available today in Equinix cloud hub data centers. We host over 300 cloud service providers among our 4,000+ customers. We give you access to nearly 700 network providers, with connectivity options including:

• Direct connection – fast & secure connectivity within the data center
• Carrier Ethernet – layer 2 connectivity to millions of lit buildings worldwide
• Optimized Internet – delivering substantial improvements in performance and availability

With these building blocks, just think what you can assemble.
 
 

Related posts:

1. Bridging the Gap in The Clouds

By Allan Graham (Part 2 in a 5-part series)

In part 1 of this series, we explored the drivers behind business continuity planning (BCP) and the necessity of taking a holistic approach in developing your plan. To be successful, a BCP plan must also be comprehensive and include:

• Risk Assessment: Plan for the Effect, Not the Threat – A key BCP lesson that has emerged after more than a decade of experience is that while it’s very important to understand the potential risks inherent in your location and business, trying to tailor your BC plan to address the specifics of every possible scenario can lead you into a bottomless pit of planning. Yes, you do need to make a risk assessment.

  What are the potential threats to your location?
  Are you in an area targeted by protestors or terrorists?
  Are you in a flood or earthquake zone?
  Is your area subject to hurricanes or heavy snow storms?
  Is your particular building located near other businesses that could pose a threat, such as hazardous chemicals?

  But since you can’t anticipate all threats, your goal is to understand how any of the various scenarios will impact your building and area. That is, you should focus on the effect: How will your organization respond to an unanticipated inability to access your production facility and connectivity services as a result of a local or regional event of a certain expected duration? How will your BCP be triggered and how will the immediate and longer-term impacts be assessed and handled? Staying focused on these questions will simplify your thinking about BC and help you target practical solutions related to your particular operation. The ultimate goal is for you and your entire management team to understand how your plan is triggered — no matter what the crisis may be — and how the immediate and longer-term impacts will be assessed and responded to.

• Business Impact Analysis – It is important to compare the cost to the business of downtime with the cost of implementing the BCP. By doing so, you can demonstrate the need for additional investment or devise a less costly plan. As a part of the BIA, determine which people and organizations are most important to revenue flow and customer satisfaction. Can you continue operations if you have data access but not phones? If some applications work but not others?The recovery time objective (RTO) is the minimum time required for getting the  critical production capabilities back online — e.g, 24 hours, 12 hours, or immediate. The recovery point objective (RPO) is the measure of how current the data must be in order to resume business operations. By establishing these metrics, you can measure the potential costs of recovery against the business impacts. You should also consider “tiering” your recovery. By bringing people, infrastructure, and applications back online in stages, you can be assured of bringing the most important business elements back first. For example, consider the 80-20 rule in financial services. If five trading desks out of 20 account for 80 percent of revenue, you can put those five desks into tier 1 and leave the other 15 in a lower tier to be brought back at a later time.

• Business Continuity Plan – In addition to being holistic and comprehensive, the BCP should be clear and auditable by all relevant organizations, including appropriate regulators (very important for financial organizations), IT, human resources, risk management, the executive team, the board of directors, etc. And it must be thoroughly tested using a variety of planned and surprise scenarios, with the results properly recorded and available for review.

• Disaster Recovery Planning – The disaster recovery plan is a critical subset of the BCP. This plan includes the specific procedures and requirements for the recovery of IT systems and bringing an alternate production site online.

• Crisis/Incident Management – This program focuses on people and communication. What are the roles and responsibilities in the event the BCP is set in motion? Who has responsibility for triggering the plan? Who has backup responsibility if any individuals with primary responsibility are unavailable? How will people be informed that the plan has been set in motion? What if various communication platforms are not available?

• Education, Training, Testing, and Reassessment – No BCP can be successful if people don’t know about it, if they aren’t trained to handle both their primary and backup responsibilities, if the plan hasn’t been tested against a variety of scenarios, and if the plan isn’t continually updated to account for changing business conditions and potential threats.

In the next post of this series, we’ll begin exploring work area recovery, examining the challenges and strategies related to creating a backup trading room facility.

Related posts:

1. Successful Business Continuity Planning for Financial Services: Scope of BCP

By Allan Graham (Part 1 in a 5-part series)

If you are relatively new to business continuity planning (BCP), then you are likely gathering information from a massive array of sources in an effort to understand what is important to your company and where you should focus your attention first.

As the host to the data centers of many of the world’s largest organizations, Equinix is in the business of helping its customers protect and connect their mission-critical applications and systems in the face of any type of event.

This five-part blog series is based on lessons learned over more than a decade of direct experience with our customers. In it we’ll explore the scope of BCP, challenges and strategies related to work area recovery, and best practices that will help you succeed in your BCP effort.

Drivers and Pressures

A business continuity plan is a set of procedures that define how a company mitigates, reacts, continues or recovers its critical functions in the event of an unplanned interruption in normal operations.

While prudent businesses have been practicing BCP for decades, today’s major focus on BCP began for many firms following the attacks of 9/11 when companies and governments (via regulations) made significant investments in “disaster recovery” from catastrophic attacks or natural disasters. Additional high-profile events — including the East Coast power outage in 2003, terrorist attacks in financial centers like London, and hurricanes, earthquakes and tsunamis — have occurred with such regularity and frequency in the last decade that the BCP manager’s credo has now evolved to “expect the expected.”

 
In 2008, the chaos, uncertainty, and disruptions of the financial crisis made clear that BC planners also needed to focus on how to keep their operations going — and minimize the impact on the business — in the face of a variety of different types of disruptions involving people, technology infrastructure, and supply chains.

In addition, the financial crisis led to significant new regulations in the financial services sector related to developing business continuity plans. Keep in mind that in the face of these pressures to increase investment in BCP during a time of tight budgets, most companies also carefully analyze how they can minimize spend, maximize value, and create an ROI model for their investment.

Holistic

For BC planning to be successful—that is, for it to ensure a business can keep running with a minimum of downtime—the plan must be “holistic” and consider four key elements:

• People – Where will people work? How will they get there? Do they know what their roles are in a crisis? Are there back-up assignments for each role? In the case of a longer term outage, how do you arrange to provide for normal creature comforts?

• Technology – How much of the technology infrastructure needs to be reconstituted in what kind of timeframe? How will it be recovered? Will it adhere to all regulatory and compliance requirements in order to allow business operations to continue? Will it be accessible by staff, partners, and customers?

• Information – Is all required digital—and paper—information currently protected and backed up so it will survive any anticipated threats? How will the digital assets be accessed by the recovered infrastructure? How will people access the paper assets if necessary?

• Communications – How will voice and data communications be restored and maintained? Should one platform have priority over the other? Does your data network have diversity in routes and carriers to ensure resilience? What if the cell phone network is down?

Your BCP must also be comprehensive, and in the next post of this series, we’ll look at the key elements of comprehensive business continuity planning.

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