Intelligent CIO Middle East Issue 05 | Page 54

INTELLIGENT BRANDS // Data Centres Colocation: Increasing agility, flexibility & cost savings With colocation, businesses can be confident that their data is safe and even in case of a disaster or emergency, they will be able to access data through secure connections, with high bandwidth and almost zero downtime, preventing any data from being lost or damaged. Apart from helping save space, colocation also guarantees network reliability and availability with maximum uptime, writes Yasser Zeineldin, CEO, eHosting DataFort. T rends such as Internet of Things (IoT), mobility, cloud and social media have been responsible for the exponential growth of data and higher complexity of enterprise computing workloads. This means that an organisation’s IT infrastructure also needs to grow at the same pace. However, building or expanding your own data centre facility could become quite expensive for businesses. According to Forrester, it costs around $200 per square foot to build a data centre, and additionally, installing fibre can cost over $10,000 per mile. While larger companies have extensive financial and human resources to cover 54 INTELLIGENTCIO costs, maintain and monitor the faci