When you think about data centers, perhaps the first thing that springs to mind is a huge glass building located in a densely-populated urban area, like New York or Chicago. However, today’s data centers are leaving the big cities, and perhaps it’s time you followed them.
Let’s take a quick look at the top advantages of working with a data center that’s in your proximity.
Advantages to Working with a Local Data Center
A data center can be built anywhere, in any place that has electricity and a good internet connection. The rise in connectivity is, in fact, one of the reasons why data centers have started to appear away from urban agglomerations.
They are easier and cheaper to maintain in less crowded places. This brings us to the first advantage of working with a local data center.
1. Local Data Centers Can Be More Affordable
The bigger the city, the more expensive running a facility there is. When a data center pays a premium for being smack in the middle of all the hustle and bustle, they pass those costs onto you, the customer.
Of course, if your business is on Wall Street, it might make sense to work with a data center right in the heart of NYC. But otherwise, the premium real estate prices reflected in your hosting fees probably aren’t worth it.
2. Easy Access to Your Data
Working with a local data center means that you know exactly where your data and your hardware are.
I’m sure you’ve experienced major websites going down because of an AWS outage. No one at these big companies can say when they’ll be back online and their digital assets are stuck floating out in the cloud with no way to reach them. In the case of smaller businesses that run on cloud storage, you may not even know on what continent your data is stored.
But when you work with a local data center, you know exactly where your data is. In the rare case of an outage, you can literally drive there and get your data. It carries many of the advantages of running your own on-site data center, but without the overhead and the expenses.
3. Less Latency and Better Speeds
When your data is stored in a local data center, it doesn’t have to travel around the whole world to get to your computers and phones—or to those of your customers. This means faster access, increased uptime, and lower latency, all of which can make a palpable difference in your business.
4. It’s Easier to Be Compliant with Various Frameworks
If you’re in a heavily regulated industry, like healthcare or financial services, then you know that data storage compliance has to be closely watched with public cloud services.
Data breaches are more frequent in these industries, which is why HIPAA, GDPR, and other similar frameworks have guidelines for data storage and access. By working with a local data center, you can more granularly control data storage security and access.
5. You Have Your Own Dedicated Data Center Team
Running a data center is hard. Maintenance and security protocols require a dedicated, skilled team. When you work with a local data center, the center’s team becomes your team—watching over your hardware and digital assets, keeping connectivity up and running, and on call for help when needed.
6. You’ll Be Closer to Your Customers
Edge computing can help you deliver digital content faster to your local customers. In addition, you’ll get better speeds, better data streams, and mission-critical applications (like CRMs or ERPs) that run with the speed of light.
If you use IoT sensors that need to collect data from a wide surface, edge computing and working with a local data center will make this data collection faster and more reliable. Sending this data to the cloud costs valuable microsends that can cost real dollars and cents.
Work With a Local Data Center in Iowa
The Heartland Technology Data Center is located in Jesup, Iowa—a data center near Center Falls—which puts us in a unique position to offer storage and connectivity services to SMEs in the Midwest—especially Waterloo data center services. At HTDC, you can customize your own connectivity package with services like storage, colocation, private fiber network, and more.
Not sure which services are right for you and which aren’t? We get it; we know that every business is unique and has unique digital needs. Get in touch with our experts for a free, no-obligation consultation.