[26561] in North American Network Operators' Group
Re: Independent rating service of colocation facilities
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Sean Donelan)
Thu Jan 6 18:24:03 2000
Date: 6 Jan 2000 15:20:16 -0800
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To: dcrocker@brandenburg.com
From: Sean Donelan <sean@donelan.com>
Cc: nanog@merit.edu
Errors-To: owner-nanog-outgoing@merit.edu
On Thu, 06 January 2000, Dave Crocker wrote:
> So the alternative is much more effort and much more difficult, but
> absolutely essential: The customer must have their own, independent access
> to high-quality technical and operations expertise and the due diligence
> must be detailed and in-person (such as the noted visual inspection of the
> generatorS.)
I would agree, except the most important parts in a colocation facility can't
be checked with a quick visual inspection. If you see problems during your
walkthrough, they are most likely serious problems. But a lot of stuff will
be undetected just by the nature of facilities.
Do you take air samples, collect a month of environmental data, plug in
a power quality analyzer, take concrete samples? I've been in very
chic data centers with very serious problems under the surface (or in
the roof :-).
A top quality audit of a data center is very time and money consuming. Doing
one for every potential customer is a waste of a lot of money. Yes, I know,
what company would risk its business without doing its own audit? But not
every company has the expertise to know what is good, bad, and just a frill.
> ps. The other burden this places on the customer is carefully and
> reasonably formulating their REAL requirement. Demanding the best of
> everything is entirely inappropriate for most businesses. You won't be
> able to afford it and you don't need it.
True, and one of the biggest problems I see with any ranking of the "best."
You end up with things like the Forrester report which says Qwest is the
"best" and Exodus will dissappear soon.
I was thinking of more a Board of Health rating instead of a ranking.
McDonalds and a five-star resturant both receive a Grade A. But there is
still plenty of room for puffery and service competition. And perhaps
breaking it up into classes, carrier-grade, data-grade, financial-grade, etc.
