Leverage provider flexibility. Hosting providers have the capability of being very flexible. They can setup a contract stating that they will only manage the hardware components of a rented rack. Everything from the hypervisor and beyond, in that case, becomes the responsibility of the customer. Even in these cases, it’s important to know if an outage has occurred or if there are failed components. Basically, the goal is to maintain constant communication with the remote environment. Administrators must know what is happening on the underlying hardware even if they are not directly responsible for it. Any impact on physical DR resources can have major repercussions on any workload running on top of that hardware.

Similarly, there are new cloud services which can take over the entire DRBC function and even have failover sites ready as needed. Remember, critical workloads and higher the uptime requirements will need to have special SLA provisions and cost considerations.

• Define business recovery requirements. When developing an SLA for a cloud or hosting datacenter, it’s important to clearly define the recovery time objective – that is, how long will components be down? Some organizations require that they maintain 99.9 percent uptime with many of their critical components. In these situations, it’s very important to ensure proper redundancies are in place to allow for failed components. This can all be built into an SLA and monitored on the backend with good tools which have visibility into the DR environment. Let me give you a specific example. If you’re leveraging Microsoft’s Cool vs Hot storage tiers – there are some uptime considerations. Microsoft highlighted that you will be able to choose between Hot and Cool access tiers to store object data based on its access pattern. However, the Cool tier offers 99 percent availability, while the Hot tier offers 99.9 percent.

So, you absolutely need to design around your own DR and continuity requirements. If an organization has a recovery objective of 0-4 hours, it’s acceptable to have some downtime, but not long. With this type of DR setup, an SLA will still be setup with clear responsibilities being segregated between the provider and the customer. Having an open level of communication and clear environmental visibility will save a lot of time and effort should an emergency situation occur.

• Plan, train, and prepare for the future. In a DR moment, everyone needs to know what they are supposed to do in order to bring their environment back up quickly. This must be clearly defined in your runbook, especially if you’re leveraging DR and business continuity services from a host or cloud provider. Most of all, when creating SLAs, make sure you plan for bursts, and what your environment will require in the near future. Restructuring SLAs and hosting contracts can be pricey – especially for critical DR systems. This means planning will be absolutely critical.

Cloud computing and the various services it provides will continue to impact organizations of all sizes. Organizations are reducing their data center footprints while still leveraging powerful services which positively impact users and the business. Using cloud for DR and business continuity is a great idea when it’s designed properly. Today, cloud services are no longer for major organizations. Mid-market and SMBs are absolutely leveraging the power of the resilient cloud. Moving forward, cloud will continue to impact organizations as they transition into a more digital world. And, having a good partnership (and SLA) with your cloud provider helps support a growing business, and an evolving user.

Source: TheWHIR

Liquid Web executive vice president Jeff Uphues will explain the importance of a deep understanding of customers, and how to gain it. With specific initiatives for MSPs, VARs, ISVs, and hosts, this Tuesday afternoon session will enable attendees to jump start their cloud services and hosting strategies.

There is still one more session announcement to come in the management track, and the final updates are being finalized for this year’s HostingCon Global. Time is running out to register, with only six weeks until the conference!

Source: TheWHIR

• SoftLayer, an IBM Company gave away a Roku SE to Bebe Bandurski of Red IVY Studios
• Lenovo gave away a Yoga tablet to Akeem Hunter of IBM
• Radware gave away a $100 AMEX giftcard to Hal Bouma of Netwisp
• Cayan gave away a Bluetooth Speaker with Carrying Case to Kevin Lynch of AEP Ohio

Our next stop is the WHIR’s hometown of Toronto during the 2016 Microsoft Partner Conference on July 12, 2016! If you’re going to be in town for the conference be sure to stop by to visit us and network with the hosting and cloud industry. Register today as spots are already filling up!

Source: TheWHIR

Read more: How Long Will the Cloud Data Center Land Grab Last?

The sound of champagne corks popping after earnings reports by the biggest players in the market, however, can mask the fact that in general, the amount of new data centers being built for lease by one or multiple tenants in the US has been declining.

This doesn’t necessarily mean the amount of new data center capacity being brought to market is shrinking. This is the age of the mega data center: service providers may be building fewer facilities, but the size of each individual building is getting bigger and bigger.

Market studies by IDC in 2014 and 2015 found that the trend in the data center provider industry was toward building fewer but larger buildings.

In a more recent study, 24 percent of colocation providers Uptime Institute surveyed this past February said their company had built a new data center within the previous 12 months. That’s down from 29 percent in 2015 and 45 percent in 2014.

Interestingly, construction slowdown in the data center provider industry has been more drastic than the slowdown in enterprise data center construction. Fifteen percent of enterprise IT respondents said their company had built a new data center within the previous 12 months both this February and the year before. Eighteen percent said so in 2014.

Source: Uptime Institute Data Center Industry Survey 2016

Far from Perfect

While overall colocation customer satisfaction levels are high – only 7 percent of respondents to Uptime’s survey said they were dissatisfied or very dissatisfied with their primary data center provider – colocation isn’t the perfect answer for everybody. According to Uptime, 40 percent of enterprise IT respondents were paying more for colo contracts than they expected to pay when they signed those contracts.

See also: Slow Waning of the Enterprise Data Center, in Numbers

Nearly one-third said they had experienced a data center outage at a colocation site, and the bulk of enterprise respondents said downtime compensation in their agreements with colo providers was insufficient. About 60 percent said the cost of data center outages overshadowed whatever downtime penalties were included in their Service Level Agreements.

Lots of Business Still on the Table

While many of the biggest data center providers are chasing the multi-megawatt wholesale deals with cloud giants, there is a huge portion of the enterprise market that remains untapped, and companies like Equinix, QTS Realty, and CyrusOne, as well as the cloud giants themselves, are pursuing that opportunity.

Source: Uptime Institute Data Center Industry Survey 2016

Enterprise-owned data centers still host 71 percent of enterprise IT assets, according to Uptime. Data center providers have 20 percent of those assets, while the remaining 9 percent is in the cloud.

The big question today is how much of that 71 percent will go to the cloud, and how much of it will end up in colocation data centers.

Further reading: Why Keep the Enterprise Data Center?

Source: TheWHIR

• Strategy around what markets my company wants to be in, globalization and who will carry my brand
• Differentiation and staying ahead of competition and/or market challenges like overcoming obsolescence
• Effectively retaining and engaging employees and people who currently or in the future could work with my company
• Alliances formed around my business or partners who will take my company’s solutions and services to market
• Verticals / Clients / partners I sell to – leads, sales, customer loyalty
• Product lines and offers, directions, services
• Financial, tax, and operational challenges – managing finances tactically and strategically
• Capital optimization – what’s needed for short and long term success
• IP and legal challenges
• Unique industry specific challenges
• Growth as a leader
• The Executive Brand I need to represent my business

Debbie Tyler, accomplished CEO, and Vistage Chair coaches business leaders and shared some of her perspective and guidelines for assembling a first class team of advisor partners.

Guideline #1: SKILLS & EXPERIENCE – Ensure your team of advisors cover relevant and diverse skills and experience encompassing financial, technical, people and operations, the business outlook, and relationships with your customer and prospects.

Guideline #2: TALENT – One of the top issues of executives today centers around talent. How does an organization affordably find the right talent, hire the right employees, challenge them, keep and protect them? Having a set of advisors with experience in successful corporate culture, human capital, incentive approaches and employee engagement, could help look at this subject from a number of viewpoints. Experienced advisors give valuable insights; likely resulting in different solutions that could positively impact your situation.

Guideline #3: MIX – Consider the mix of advisors: having expertise from diverse backgrounds, diverse age groups, and diverse types of experience is important. Statistics support this. In a recent blog http://www.theresacaragol.com/blog/, we uncovered that profitability, innovation, and diversity are directly correlated according to extensive global 2016 research.

Evaluate potential advisors outside of your network and don’t always rely on your most trusted relationships. It’s potentially dangerous to select advisors solely based on proximity or comfort, especially relationships of folks who are vested in you. It’s important that advisors are people who will give unfiltered, sometimes provocative, innovative or even controversial insights. It’s often in this type of feedback that golden nuggets for success exist.

Guideline #4: COMPENSATION – Consider the compensation you give your advisors. Is it an informal mentor or sponsor relationship that has no compensation? Is it a relationship that carries an equity or dividend stake in the business associated with company growth? Is it a standard advisory board that has a set stipend compensation? Your approach is dependent upon the stage of the company, the purpose of the advisors, and the sophistication and experience of the executive seeking the advice, among other factors. Most importantly, take care to properly set up and formalize the relationship with the advisor. Be clear with all advisors about expectations, time and resource commitments, compensation model, and the timeline of the advisory role.

Guideline #5: EMOTIONAL INTELLIGENCE – Test your own emotional intelligence; ensure you have a high degree of self-actualization and are brave enough to receive the input, as well as see and work on your own blind spots. Are you truly open to hearing and receiving feedback and taking action on it? High performing executives can handle confrontation and challenges from those around them

Debbie Tyler asserts the right group of advisor should challenge you via healthy debate. Top executives are assertive and confident but comfortable and frequently energized when challenged by their advisors. If you don’t receive questions you haven’t thought of already, you likely are missing out on opportunity – money, footprint, or some area for growth.

Last, Debbie Tyler offers another key tip for assembling your board. Consider an empty room and think about where it is you need to take your organization for success. Then list out the types of skills, experience, personalities, and connections required at the table to help you scale your mountain. Then and only then do you place a name; unless of course it’s a no brainer like Warren Buffet!

How many advisors and what types of boards an individual should participate in is dependent upon the complexity of the role the person holds, the cross-functional nature of what his/her mission is, and the degree of change required for the organization’s success. In general, you may choose five to eight individuals with different backgrounds who can offer strong consult and perspective.

Other ways to obtain advisory services that can be extremely effective include: formal CEO and executive peer leadership groups like Vistage that offer advisory, peer networking, coaching, and global network access all in one. Another option is to hire an individual executive coach. According to a recent Fast Company article, 60 percent of growth stage CEOs use executive coaches, and 32 percent of seed-stage CEOs use a coach.

There are numerous ways to get trusted and confidential perspective, to learn from other seasoned and fellow executives and to continuously invigorate and challenge your thinking as an executive. Be deliberate about the advisors, be dedicated to listening and gaining consult, and be diverse in the group you assemble.

These factors will be a key tenet of you and your organization’s success.

This article is brought to you by HostingCon, the Cloud and Service Provider Ecosystem event. Join us in New Orleans, Louisiana July 24-27, 2016 to hear Theresa and other thought leaders talk about issues and trends in the cloud, hosting and service provider ecosystem.

Save $100 off your HostingCon All Access Pass with coupon code: H1279

Source: TheWHIR

SEE ALSO: Report: Deutsche Telekom Considers Host Europe Group Acquisition

A purchase of Host Europe would bolster an increasingly important business of web hosting and cloud computing at United Internet, as more consumers store data online and companies hook factories to the web. United Internet is open to buying international web-hosting companies with a focus on its existing markets, Chief Executive Officer Ralph Dommermuth said in an interview last month.

United Internet declined to comment. Cinven had no immediate comment.

Deutsche Telekom AG, which owns the Strato AG web-hosting business, is also considering a bid for HEG, a person familiar with the situation said last week.

United Internet rose 1.3 percent to 39.15 euros at 14:47 p.m. Frankfurt. Drillisch AG fell as much as 6.4 percent in Frankfurt after the news, which quelled speculation that United Internet may raise its stake in the wireless operator, according to Jochen Reichert, an analyst at Warburg Research.

“A potential bid for HEG would not leave room for a takeover of Drillisch at the same time,” Reichert said Thursday.

In past years United Internet has acquired web-hosting companies including Arsys Internet and United-Domains AG. It has been weighing an initial public offering of its business applications division, which competes with domain registration services and web-hosters including GoDaddy Inc.

Cinven, a private equity firm based in Guernsey, Channel Islands, bought Host Europe from Montagu Private Equity LLP for 438 million pounds ($651 million) in 2013, expanded the business with acquisitions including of German hosting company Intergenia Holding GmbH last year.

The transaction value of Host Europe is 584 million pounds including “aggregate buy and build” values, according to Cinven’s website.

Source: TheWHIR