Datacenter Certification – SAS 70 Type II

Choosing the right cloud hosting provider can be a difficult task for companies. There is no overarching regulatory agency overseeing the cloud computing industry. There are few objective standards or industry-specific certifications look for.

One important standard to look for in a cloud hosting or colocation provider is a SAS70 Type II Certified Datacenter.

SAS 70 Type II is an auditing statement issued to service providers, such as cloud hosting providers and datacenter colocation operators, by the Auditing Standards Board of the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants (AICPA).

What is SAS 70 and why should it matter to your company?

SAS 70 simply means “Statement of Auditing Standards Number 70”. An SAS 70 report demonstrates that a service organization has implemented effective control objects and activities.

For cloud hosting, web hosting, and colocation service providers such as EarthLink Cloud, SAS 70 certification means we can offer our business customers a SAS 70 report to use to assist their financial reporting. EarthLink Cloud also prepared a description of controls to help our assess their own internal controls over financial reporting in accordance with Section 404 of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act and the Public Company Accounting Oversight Board’s (PCAOB) Auditing Standard No. 5 (AS 5).

Make sure you look for Type II certification when selecting a datacenter for hosting or colocation. Type I certification only states that policies and procedures exist, although there is no audit to ensure that the organization adheres to these procedures. Type II certification comes only after a lengthy and rigorous in-person audit that ensures the service provider adheres to their procedures.

EarthLink Cloud’s SAS 70 Type II certification is especially important to our clients who are larger institutions and publicly traded companies who must comply with security requirements such as Sarbanex-Oxley. Those clients can use our audit report for their specific security and reporting requirements.

Type II certification shows that we are following industry best practices, are operating in a transparent way, and can be trusted with your data. Learn more about SAS 70 certification guidelines.

Learn more about our secure EarthLink Cloud colocation and hosting datacenter.

And the Data Pipe gets bigger again!

Earlier this month we increased our Highly Available Network Bandwidth to over 1.3 Gbps, spread over 3 redundant backbone providers that are each connected by a 1Gb fiber uplink to the Internet backbone.  With this upgrade, we are one of the highest capacity datacenters in Western New York.

This upgrade is the 2nd in three planned network upgrades for 2010.  In Q3 of this year, in anticipation of continued growth, we will be adding another Tier 1 backbone connection in order to bring even more bandwidth  to our clients, while also reducing bandwidth costs to our colocation clients.

Full Cabinet Colocation PDU (Full Rack PDU)

Which Power Distribution Unit should I buy for my Co-location ?  Our Most Popular choice of PDU’s amongst most of our Co-Location Customers is TripLite PDUMV20HVNET in the 30A/208V Flavor.

Questions to Ask yourself are:

• Should I go with 120V or 230V?  Generally we recommend 230V, as most equipment can handle it these days.
• Is Remote Reboot Capabilities Needed? 

If Remote Reboot Cabailities are needed, Tripp Lite makes a Switched, Metered Rack PDU that give IT managers the ability to remotely monitor PDU power consumption and in-rack environmental conditions, and to turn on, turn off, recycle or lock out power to each individual receptacle.  This product is Tripp Lite Model # PDUMV20HVNET

Another Low Cost option is the Tripp Lite Model PDUV30HV.  We can also lease you one of these models with your Colocation Cabinet for $15/mo if you want to try one out.

Which Datacenter Is Right For Me? This Handy Checklist May Help:

I have been in the data center services industry for about 10 years now and I never get tired of the question…..”which data center is right for me?”.  Well, as many of you know, the answer can be an endless list of marketing blah.  But the real answer is, “what do you need from a data center?”  If your data is mission critical to your business, then the facility you should be looking for needs to be absolutely bullet-proof.  What I mean is you need to make certain that not only is the data center 100% secure and reliable, but also that you are confident the provider you have chosen has taken the necessary steps to provide true Enterprise Class data center services.  As a guide, here are some questions that you need to ask each provider when choosing a data center:  
• Do you own the building the data center is in? (I’ve seen landlords get in the way of operating efficiently)
• How long have you been in business ?(a long  and positive track record means everything)
• Do you have multiple bandwidth providers? (the more diverse providers, the more redundant)
• Do you have multiple generators? (remember, redundancy is the key)
• What type of fire suppression is installed? (remember, “dry pipe/pre-action” means  water…yikes)
• Do you have 24/7 monitoring? (someone always needs to be proactively monitoring for issues)
• Do you have 24/7 support? (Murphy’s law….make sure someone is there to assist at any time)
• What are your plans for growth? (if they are not planning for their future, do they care about yours?)
• Are you SAS70 Certified? (shouldn’t your provider put forth the extra effort/expense to insure operational excellence?)
• Do you allow 24/7 access to the data center? (it’s your stuff, you should be able to get to it when you want)
• How do you charge for power? (metered power is catching on…..pay only for what you use)
• Do you monitor PUE? (if you’re concerned with energy efficiency, shouldn’t your provider be too?)

Datacenter Services and Upstate (Upstate NY Data Center)

When I first started in the Data Center Services Industry, I was with an International provider working out of headquarters in NYC.  Man, I thought that was the place to be…..New York City, the most important metropolitan city in the world with the latest and greatest that technology had to offer. Things were going great.  We had a beautiful data center and NYC was overflowing with companies that needed our services.   Customers were lining up at our door….we couldn’t build cabinets fast enough.  The Data Center industry was on cruise control and I was driving it in New York City.    Then came Sept. 11, 2001.  We were located about 10 blocks from the World Trade Center – not that far when you’re talking about city blocks in Manhattan.  The city stopped, nobody was allowed access to our building for weeks.  Yes, the generators kicked on when the power failed, our multiple access providers allowed us to maintain connectivity and our staff did a great job keeping our customers online.  As we all experienced, everything came to a screeching halt after the attacks.  Without downplaying the tragedies of that day, my focus for this message is that although the data center performed exactly as it was supposed to, our customers quickly changed the way they viewed where their data center is located and their disaster recovery plans.

Well, now it’s 2009 and I’m fortunate to continue my career within the Data Center services industry with EarthLink.  I followed the lead of a lot of my clients from NYC and moved away from the metro area and headed north to Upstate, NY.  Most of the customers I had in NYC either moved their primary  infrastructure out of the NYC data center and into one located in this region, or setup a DR site in a data center located in this area.  Either way, they quickly discovered that data center services provided in Upstate, NY are not only as good (if not better), but the price is right too.   One of the many things that Upstate has to offer is the climate.  Our climate lends itself very well for data center cooling and power management.  I’m sure you’ve heard that Yahoo has even recognized this and is building their newest data center in Buffalo.  EarthLink has built its newest data center in Pittsford, NY – a suburb of Rochester.  With our data center located in this area, we are able to accomplish many things.  One of those is the ability to reduce power costs by utilizing the latest technologies by taking advantage of the cooler climate.  Combined with the ability to provide metered power, we are able to manage power utilization more efficiently which enables us to pass tremendous cost savings on to our customers.  When you are considering data center services, start to consider the Upstate, NY region for the energy efficient processes, robust backbone options, and skilled engineering support.

Data Center: Too Much High Availability Bandwidth?

One of my first engineering professors was pretty old school, having earned his reputation long before the days of computer aided design, finite element analysis and precision engineering.  He was the first one to teach me about the ‘safety factor’ – something that every engineer already knows intuitively: “Take whatever you need to support the load, and triple it”.  If you were tasked with building a bridge that needed to support 200 Tons – build it to support 600 tons!

Over the past few days, I have recently been accused of ‘over-engineering’ another part of the Data Center – our Internet Backbone Providers.  While some Data Centers are comfortable having 2 connections to the backbone of the Internet, the lifeblood of our business – we added our fourth connection this week.  Yes, that is four separate Gigabit connections to four different bandwidth providers, any two of which can support the full capacity of our Data Center.

For 14 years, we have taken the uptime of our data centers and core network very seriously, learning along the way of course, though sparing no expense or effort to offer our clients the best assurance possible that their Data Center would be up to the task at hand.  We have always purchased twice the bandwidth needed by our clients, and will continue to over-engineer and reinvest in the data center to give our clients the piece of mind they need.

I wonder if that professor of 20 years ago had any idea the simple lesson taught would apply in many more ways than just designing mechanical things?

LogicalSolutions.net’s Green Meter

When the LogicalSolutions team took on the project of designing a new Data Center our goal was to build a facility that was reliable, secure and one that would make our people and our client’s proud.  We started by taking the lessons that we have learned firsthand from operating Data Centers for over 14 years, and combined that experience with state of the art designs and technologies from around the world.  After reviewing all of this material, the area that we saw the greatest opportunity for advancement in was power management and energy efficiency.

The computer industry is currently faced with exponentially increasing operating cost as newer more powerful hardware consume more power per server multiplied with the increasing cost of energy.  Last year alone U.S. Data Centers consumed about 80 billion kilowatt-hours (kWh), roughly 2 percent of total U.S. electricity consumption and it is estimated that this figure will double over the next 5 years.  In order to combat this trend of increasing cost both for our clients and the environment, EarthLink selected only the most efficient power distribution and cooling technologies available; but this was only the first step. 

To measure the efficiency of a Data Center the industry uses a metric called PUE.  It stands for Power Usage Effectiveness which is a fancy name for a ratio that represents the total power coming into the Data Center divided by the amount of power used by the servers.  Over the last 3 months our team has created a Green Meter that calculates the efficiency of our Data Center in real-time, utilizing the network of revenue grade power meters that we have installed on all of our equipment. This tool has enabled us to tune our systems, which in turn, increased the efficiency of our Data Center by an additional 15%.  This tool also helped us realize that the efficiency of our Data Center is directly tied to outside air temperature.  As it gets cooler outside it takes less energy to keep the servers cool therefore we are able to increase the percentage of our total power usage that goes to the servers. For every degree we are below 80F the Data Center operates approximately 1% more efficient.   With the annual mean temperature of Rochester being 48 degrees Fahrenheit, combined with reasonable electric rates and great fiber paths in and out of the region, it makes upstate New York an ideal location for Data Centers.  Also evidenced by Yahoo’s decision to build their next Data Center near Buffalo.

What does all of this mean for our clients?  EarthLink is currently the only Data Center in upstate New York and one of the few in the country that offers revenue grade power metering for all of our electrical circuits.  By utilizing this branch circuit monitoring system, we are able to provide our colocation clients with variable rate pricing for electricity based on actual KWh consumed.  This billing system saves our clients money and rewards them for being responsible with their power usage.

Insist on Metered Power in your next Data Center!

How would you like to buy the power you use at your home – pay for how much you use, or pay for the absolute maximum that you could possibly need each month?  I have a hunch you answered “Pay for just what I use”, right?  So why would you rent space in a data center and not pay the exact same way?  Yet still today a majority of all data centers will charge you a flat fee for each electric circuit that you need.

Here is the most typical example if you would allow me to get a little technical on you for just a second:  You decide that colocation is a smart option for your company.  You find a data center that you trust and rent a full cabinet for all of your servers.  Your sales rep tells you that each one comes with one (1) 20amp circuit – just like the ones you have in your home or office, it is a standard US plug that can handle 20 amps of electricity flowing through it at 120 volts. (The first circuit is baked into the initial price of the cabinet) You plug in 8 servers, and your IT team tells you that they need another circuit for the 9th server which costs you $250/month.  Yes – that is correct – you have to pay a full $250/month to get that 9th server running, even though you will only be needing about 2 amps of the 2nd 20amp circuit. 

Doesn’t make sense?  The answer is pretty simple – find a data center that offers revenue grade metered power, and pay for just what you use.  I can assure you that you will save much more money in the long run, here is how:

In summary – power is now the biggest cost in any data center, and that is passed on to you.  By only paying for what you use, you will save money as well as help shift the IT world towards more green & energy efficient computing!  Want to know more on this? Feel free to email me directly.  Also watch for my next part in this series on real time energy efficiency monitoring in your next data center.