North American Network Operators Group Date Prev | Date Next | Date Index | Thread Index | Author Index | Historical Re: Independent rating service of colocation facilities
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.
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