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Where Would You Outsource Your Datacenter?

Posted by Cliff on from the who-do-you-trust-to-get-it-right dept.

An anonymous reader asks: "I want to outsource everything in our rackspace to reputable online providers. After wasting valuable time every day on mundane problems and upgrades, I'm convinced it's cheaper to pay monthly than maintain our hardware and staff time. So I ask you, Slashdot: who would you turn to for reliable and secure outsourcing of a VPN server, Exchange server, online backup, and webserver hosting?"

3 of 67 comments (clear)

  1. You are asking the wrong question by Jailbrekr · · Score: 5, Insightful

    You should be asking "Which company can we outsource our I/T needs to?". Parking your servers in a remote location will not reduce your overall costs, it will only increase your potential downtime. Why? Because you are introducing another point of failure. That point of failure is between your business and the datacentre you have outsourced to.

    If you value your data, keep it internal and outsource the support to a solution provider like EDS, IBM, or any of those big firms. They will provide the expertese necessary to supply and maintain the hardware and software for you so you can concentrate on your core business.

    It won't be cheaper, but you will be able to easily quantify the yearly I/T costs which will make the accountants happy, and you will be able to pull the necessary funds from a different piggy bank, keeping your payroll low.

    --
    Feed the need: Digitaladdiction.net
  2. Where would you outsource your management? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny


    I have a similar problem. I'm in charge of an IT department that runs a VPN server, Exchange server, online backup, and webserver hosting. After wasting our time with a management staff that doesn't want to adequately staff our department, we've decided to outsource them. Where would go to outsource your management?

  3. Putting the cart before the horse? by mrolig · · Score: 5, Insightful

    How can you already have the conclusion that it is cheaper to outsource? If you don't know who could offer you the services you need, how do you know what they charge? You should investigate your requirements, prepare a bid if you keep in in-house, ask for bids to do it outsourced and compare.

    Here's the situation I think you want avoid:

    Company: keeping vending machines stocked and maintained is a pain in the butt and it costs us $5000 a month.

    I know there are companies that provide this service for $2500.

    Concusion : Let's oursource!

    Gather requirements, ask for bids to do soda and candy machines.

    Best bid $6000 a month. Ooops - the $2500 we knew about was only for Soda.

    You have to have your requirements together to get bids to make the initial decision to outsource.