Chris’s Trip to the Datacenter

A lot of people don’t know this and it’s typically not something that web hosting providers mention but very few small to medium size web site hosting companies actually have been to their datacenter let alone own their own datacenter.

A datacenter, in this sense, is the place where all of a companies servers are housed and typically the facility has a backbone connection to the Internet as well as tight security, redundant power systems, and a myriad of other services.

Short Consulting’s servers are located here in Tampa. This is an even bigger advantage. Ask your hosting provider to go touch their servers and the people in the facility where your web server is housed. A lot of web hosting providers would probably have to buy a plane ticket.

The company that leases the Short Consulting servers out to us is Sago Networks. I had the pleasure of making a surprise visit to Sago Networks a few days ago.

I have to say that I was very impressed with the security and I was also impressed with the expansion that Sago Networks is doing. Additional servers, bandwidth, power systems, and cooling systems are all in the works.

Their staff was more than helpful and explained a lot about the cooling and power systems and subsystems (which is not something that the typical server or network administrator typically knows everything about) as well as their intricate network backbone and vast server farms.

The Sago Networks Network Operations Center (NOC) itself is a work of art. Monitoring systems galore, intelligent personnel, and courteous staff which are not something you find in every NOC.

During the tour I was shown several executive suites that an individual or company could rent so that they could host their business from inside the Sago Networks high security complex. This is something I’d be interested in if Short Consulting ever balloons into something much larger than it is today.

Sago Networks is a class A outfit and Short Consulting is proud to do business with them.