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Identify the Best Data Center for Your Business: The Ultimate Interconnection Buyer’s Guide and Checklist

Written by The CoreSite Team | 02/03/2023

Data center interconnection capabilities and management solutions are cited time and again at the top of the list of companies’ criteria for choosing a provider that is best for accelerating growth and increasing profitability. 

As the demand soars for increasingly distributed access to services and ever-larger volumes of data, more businesses are migrating some or all of their IT infrastructure to data center colocation facilities – where the interconnection they need is available. 

Global data center colocation is expected to grow at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 13.3% from 2021 to 2028, according to a Grand View Research market analysis report.1 The report also states: “Data centers have emerged as an inseparable part of modern business practices responsible for running critical business applications.” 

Businesses can realize numerous benefits by migrating their IT infrastructures to third-party data centers including:

  • Increased performance and reliability
  • Low latency, low-cost data transfer
  • On-demand, elastic scalability
  • Enhanced physical security
  • Reduced costs

 

A New Tool: The Ultimate Interconnection Buyer’s Guide

Get your copy of the Ultimate Interconnection Buyer’s Guide and Checklist, developed to augment your data center selection process.

CoreSite has created The Ultimate Interconnection Buyer’s Guide to help companies make an informed decision on where to locate their unique IT infrastructure. The Buyer’s Guide includes a Data Center Buyer’s Considerations Checklist, developed to streamline apples-to-apples comparison during the evaluation process.

The Buyer’s Guide and Checklist are particularly useful because it’s estimated that, as of January 2022, there are 2,701 data centers in the United States alone.2

What is Interconnection?

Data centers provide a central meeting place for networks, clouds and enterprises to house their physical infrastructure. Interconnection services are the physical (and virtual) connections between companies that enable the exchange of data.

Interconnection has the ability to support one-to-many connectivity. Peering and cloud exchanges enable organizations to set up a more efficient network architecture and support multicloud connectivity through accessing multiple vendors through a single connection.

A Data Center Frontier report states: “Interconnection enables data exchange between two or more entities or partners at the fastest possible speed by combining high-performance networks with physical proximity. Customers avoid having to work around the unpredictability of the public Internet and data communication costs are minimal.”3

How to Evaluate a Data Center

Not every data center or colocation data center, though, is the same, so it’s important that you understand the services and capabilities your company needs to achieve your current and future goals, and that you ask the right questions as you evaluate the many data center options available to you.  

You’ll want to evaluate each data center’s interconnection capabilities very closely to ensure that the data center you choose has a demonstrated track record of delivering:

  • Multiple interconnection solutions that align with your unique business requirements
  • Interconnection across the digital ecosystem surrounding your enterprise 
  • Native onramps to all major cloud providers

Ideally, the data center you choose should also have its own, rich interconnection ecosystem comprising major cloud providers, content delivery networks, ISPs and SaaS providers, and should be:

  • Capable of supporting one-to-one and one-to-many connections
  • Carrier-neutral
  • 5G ready
  • Architected to support IoT and edge applications 

 

CoreSite Interconnection Solutions: High Performance, Efficiency and Reduced Total Cost of Operation

CoreSite’s colocation data centers provide a hub for networks, clouds and enterprises to house their physical infrastructure and efficiently exchange traffic with one another. Our interconnection services include the physical connections between those companies and logical solutions that enable data exchange.

CoreSite’s suite of interconnection solutions offers robust, innovative connectivity that increases performance and efficiency while reducing TCO.

You can learn more about each CoreSite Interconnection Solution in our recently updated brochure, available here.

Data Center Interconnection Capabilities Are Critical to Making the Best Possible Infrastructure Migration Decisions 

As enterprises continue to modernize IT, the ability to interconnect to multiple networks, clouds and SaaS providers is a key consideration when migrating to data center colocation facilities. Deciding on which data center colocation facility to partner with in order to achieve their business goals, however, requires a rigorous evaluation process.

CoreSite’s Ultimate Interconnection Buyer’s Guide and Data Center Buyer’s Considerations Checklist can help you make the right decision when choosing a data center partner.

Download it today and feel free to contact us for additional information.