Private Cloud: Should Businesses Use Multiple Data Centres?

By deploying a Private Cloud installation, businesses gain a competitive IT infrastructure advantage. Best-in-class data centres, total control of their hardware – and huge performance gains over Public Clouds.

Private Clouds even beat in-house, self-hosted servers on almost all metrics imaginable.

But sometimes, just one data centre installation isn’t enough. In this post, we’ll explore the reasons why some businesses might choose to operate out of multiple data centres, and the advantages for doing so.

Why use multiple data centres for Private Cloud?

The big headline feature of using multiple data centres is continuity.

Unrivalled reliability

Decentralised IT infrastructure protects against the worst. For critical use cases – like finance, medical, emergency services and government – redundancy is vital. Imagine being able to seamlessly switch your data centre out during a disaster, from a dead weight to a functioning Private Cloud. It’s a major boost to confidence for any critical application.

Flooding, fire, and civil unrest can cut off everything, including a data centre.

While this kind of worst-case scenario is highly unlikely, the world isn’t a predictable or stable place right now. Climate change and wild weather are routinely battering the planet, leaving large areas with no power.

Energy itself is in short supply. Wars are ongoing, whether seen publicly or hidden from view.

Knowing that critical data – the kind that lives depend on – is safe in all of that? That’s important. Now more than ever.

Deploying a Private Cloud solution across multiple data centres can give that peace of mind, and bring along a few more advantages, too.

Power

The cost of power is front page news, all over the world. But energy costs aren’t equal everywhere – and businesses can take advantage of lower energy bills by establishing a more cost-effective Private Cloud installation overseas.

Because the computing load can be spread among multiple locations, power bills can be reduced in each location – especially if the installation is in an area with lower power costs than the main data centre. Services can be optimised based on demand, to deliver the best experience for the lowest cost per watt.

Backups

Much like the benefits to continuity, having multiple backups at different data centre sites gives businesses the ability to restore data quicker, and minimise downtime.

Speed, scale and compliance

Using multiple Private Clouds across global data centres gives companies international reach – with improved local user experience, and local compliance.

Data residency laws are strictest in just about every country north of the equator (with some notable exceptions), as well as parts of South America, Australasia and South Africa. Data residency is comparatively loose in Central and South Asia – but as time goes on, compliance is becoming more important absolutely everywhere.

In any case, localised data centres mean that data residency laws can be adhered to closely – and this is a non-negotiable feature for any business that stores sensitive user data. Compliance with data residency laws is one of the key use cases for multiple data centres, and multiple Private Clouds.

But this localisation also presents a speed and connectivity advantage.

Case in point – our Private Cloud installation at Equinix MI6, a flagship data centre in Miami, has opened our customer up to high-speed connectivity throughout North and South America, with a single strategic location.

Using multiple data centres allows businesses to scale globally, and far more effectively – often with a single move.

Using multiple data centres in the same territory

Spreading Private Cloud infrastructure over multiple data centres in the same territory still provides speed and connectivity advantages (as well as everything else we’ve covered).

To give one example, our partnerships with class-leading UK data centres (like GS2 and Volta) allow us to provide lightning-fast speeds, with latency as low as ~1ms in high-density areas. By spreading demand and load over multiple data centres, customer and user experiences can be consistently excellent, with plenty of headroom for increased periods of demand.

Overall, using multiple data centres for Private Cloud makes the most sense for critical operations of cornerstone organisations – especially those highly dependent on their IT infrastructure.

But even smaller organisations and businesses that want to deliver the best possible service can benefit from a scalable, custom-built Private Cloud ecosystem.

It all depends on your needs, your goals, and your ambitions for the future. And if the future of your business is in the Cloud – we’ll help you make it a reality.

For Private Cloud Solutions, Your Business Deserves deeserve.

We’re deeserve – experts in Private Cloud solutions and IT services, and a trusted partner to some of the largest organisations in the world. Let us design your ideal solution, at one of our world-class data centres.

Call us on 01509 80 85 86 or send your message to [email protected] to get started.

Posted on: 26th September 2022.