According to Gartner a move to N. Europe presents IT managers with an opportunity for savings-- as much as up to 50% on colocation expenses can be saved thanks to falling power costs in Norway and Sweden.
The analyst says Amsterdam, Frankfurt, London and Paris are the "major" colocation centres for multinationals and pan-European businesses, but a move to the Nordics makes even more economic sense. As mentioned above power is cheaper in Norway and Sweden (power costs are down by -5% since 2010, Gartner says), and the use of the outside air for cooling brings even more savings.
Famously Google and Facebook have data centres in the Nordics, in Finland and Sweden respectively.
"It’s important to weigh up several key decision factors when considering moving workloads away from the major colocation hubs to Nn Europe,” Gartner says. “However, in most organisations there are several IT functions such as data warehousing or browser-based apps that simply do not warrant the significantly increased running costs of colocation in a major hub."
Gartner suggests a number of key factors to consider before making a move up north:
- Network latency-- locations should be designed according to latency required.
- Application requirements-- non-standalone applications integrated within connected systems work best when kept within the same data centre infrastructure.
- Security compliance-- certain data or apps that use data may not be suitable for use outside specific geographies.
- Power availability-- not just within one's racks, but also the data centre and the country in general.
- Cooling costs-- how power-effective are the cooling methods the data centre uses?
- Price-- one should evaluate both price per kilowatt and per kilowatt per hour.
- Support-- does the supplier provide support, or does the data centre host an in-house technical team?
The analyst also lists common colocation costs, including colocation setup, migration, rental, power consumption, support and, eventually, decommission come end of contract.
“If considering these factors reveals an opportunity to move workloads and applications to another location, it’s also very important to properly map out the costs over a lifecycle,” Gartner continues. “A cost estimate should be considered over at least three years and take into account several price components that make up the total cost.”
Go Save Up to 50% on European Colocation By Choosing the Right Location (Gartner)