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Insights Success The 10 Fastest Growing Data Center Solution Provider companies

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CXO Standpoint<br />

numerous <strong>companies</strong>, public and private, small and large; I<br />

can count on one hand the number of board room<br />

discussions concerning back-up and DR, or risk mitigation<br />

of any type regarding critical data loss.<br />

<strong>The</strong> happy news is that from my perspective, the options<br />

available to most <strong>companies</strong> of all sizes has never been<br />

better. Connectivity, processing and storage costs will<br />

continue to drop. <strong>The</strong>re is no one set solution for <strong>companies</strong><br />

but current and future technology is such that demands of<br />

all types can be met. Big public cloud, small public cloud,<br />

private cloud, dedicated, on premise, off premise, etc., high<br />

speed, big connectivity can all be accessed and utilized to<br />

minimize IT costs. But all solutions must be business based,<br />

working from the business need to the IT solution. And all<br />

IT solutions should be benchmarked to minimize cost.<br />

J. Mark MacDonald<br />

Founder / CEO,<br />

Canada 151 <strong>Data</strong> <strong>Center</strong>s Inc.<br />

As a relative newcomer to the industry with a background<br />

in finance, I would also perceive a huge knowledge and<br />

understanding gap between IT and the rest of most<br />

<strong>companies</strong>. IT can appear to the un-initiated to be the<br />

world's largest, most complicated and expensive black box.<br />

I would perceive that this may be a significant contributor<br />

to calls for complete IT outsourcing or at least cost<br />

reduction.<br />

Lastly, all solutions must be based on rock solid and highly<br />

secure and redundant power, connectivity and cooling<br />

infrastructure. Grids will go down, not if but when.<br />

Mechanical devices, generators, UPS, HVAC will cease to<br />

function, not if but when (if maintained properly and<br />

replaced appropriately, very rarely). Loss of data is another<br />

when, not if. <strong>The</strong> problem is that it happens infrequently, so<br />

consequences are difficult to understand and inertia sets in.<br />

People didn’t stop smoking when presented with proof that<br />

it would kill them in 50 years – the consequence was too far<br />

off and hence of low practical probability.<br />

<strong>Data</strong> loss and outages have low frequency but are hugely<br />

impactful; Again, not if but when. Regret is huge – ever lost<br />

your laptop, without having a backup?<br />

<strong>The</strong>se events, while infrequent but catastrophic, can be<br />

mitigated by best businesses practices which means<br />

frequent backup to a highly redundant infrastructure. But<br />

risk mitigation culture starts at the top.<br />

As a solution provider to end clients, this overall confusion<br />

can create significant impediments to adoption of best<br />

practices – including what should be simple but is not:<br />

back-up and disaster recovery. Over the past 25 years (most<br />

of the history of the internet), I have served on the Board of<br />

| JULY 2016 | 23

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