Maintaining your data center is a lot of work. There are so many different pieces in this complex puzzle; between the servers and the software, the hardware and the infrastructure. Fortunately, there is good news: Data center managed services are just what you need to keep everything running smoothly. 

Data centers are increasingly critical to the way businesses operate. They are the hubs of network operation, storing and analyzing data, supporting applications that run in the cloud, and acting as mission control for your IT services. Data center managed services can help you take advantage of this technology while keeping management costs low, optimizing performance, and responding quickly to any issues that arise.

Whether you're looking to get more out of your existing data center or you need to migrate to an entirely new one, managed services can help you achieve your goals.  

Have peace of mind with data center managed IT services that help you avoid costly downtime 

Downtime is a disaster. The only thing worse than losing your data is losing your data twice. 

If you've ever had to deal with downtime, then you know that feeling of dread when you realize your whole system has gone down—and that all the information stored in there is inaccessible. It can be a nightmare to try and recover from this. 

With data center managed services, it's easy to prevent downtime from happening in the first place. This can save you thousands of dollars in lost productivity and data recovery costs. 

How much does downtime cost your company? 

Downtime is the term used to describe when your network is unusable. There are many reasons a network might go down, from natural disasters to human error. Did you know that the cost of downtime for your business can add up to $260,000 per hour? That might be a lot if your company makes millions of dollars a year, but even less profitable businesses could see their bottom line seriously hurt by this kind of loss. That's why it's so important to protect your network from cyberattacks and accidental outages. 

For small businesses, this can be particularly devastating: If an employee makes $50/hour and they aren't able to work for 2 hours due to downtime, it costs your company $100 in lost productivity. That number goes up exponentially for larger enterprises with hundreds or thousands of employees. If there's just a 20-minute outage every day caused by downtime, that's costing the company over $15 million per year in lost productivity alone! 

In fact, 50% of companies that experience a cyberattack will go out of business within six months—so it's not just about recovering from downtime and getting back to work as soon as possible, it's about surviving the aftermath. 

For most businesses, this can be devastating. 

With data center managed services you can be proactive instead of constantly putting out fires 

If you're like most businesses, you're always putting out fires. 

That's not how it should be. 

Proactive management means you can focus on what really matters—making sure critical business applications are available and responsive to your users, so they can do their jobs. 

Managing a data center is like managing a living organism. At the end of the day, there's a lot that has to happen in order to make sure everything functions properly and continues to grow. A typical day begins with taking inventory of current resources—like bandwidth, storage space, and computing power—and then using those details to determine what's needed over the course of the next several weeks or months.  

Then it's all about identifying solutions and making them work as efficiently as possible. It also involves communicating with stakeholders and clients, record-keeping, reporting, and adapting processes based on where the organization is headed. 

However, with data center managed services, you get the best of both worlds: The newest, largest-scale technologies, and a flexible service model that's tailored to your needs. 

For instance, data center managed services are designed to assist your business in achieving its full potential while allowing you to focus on the aspects of your operations that matter most: Creating innovative products and services that delight your customers. 

When using data center managed services, you hire a certified partner to care for your servers and network hardware. Instead of hiring a full-time IT person or department, it's much more cost-effective to have an expert on call when you need them. 

These services can include identifying, installing, maintaining, and troubleshooting all technology systems and devices that support the data center. Managed services also include managing other aspects of the data center's operations, such as security and network management. Data center management is essential to keep your facility running smoothly, reduce downtime, ensure compliance with legal standards, and manage costs by preventing overspending on labor. 

Using data center managed services can be beneficial for your business in a number of ways. Here are just a few: 

The most obvious benefit of using managed services is that it reduces the amount of time you spend managing your own business's data center. If you have a large company, this could be a full-time job. By outsourcing it to someone else, you are freeing up more time and resources that you can use elsewhere. Another benefit is that your data will be safer in the event of an emergency or disaster. If something were to happen at your location, such as a fire or flood, having an off-site backup can save you from losing important information. 

Data center managed services also give you peace of mind knowing that should anything happen to your business's physical location, it will not affect its ability to continue operating normally. This can be especially helpful if there is an interruption in power supply due to natural disasters or other reasons outside of your control. 

Finally, having someone else handle your company's IT needs means they will have access to more advanced tools than what would otherwise be available on-site at the office itself (such as servers).  

A managed service provider can ensure that all of this is taken care of for you, so you don't have to worry about staying current with industry trends or ongoing expenses. That means more time for you to focus on running your core business, which results in faster growth and lower operational costs. 

Why should you partner with an experienced data center management provider? 

The average IT worker makes about $80,000 per year. And for a business to have full-time IT staff with the required expertise, it needs to have at least a dozen people on the team. This can get expensive quickly, and for many businesses it is simply not sustainable. 

As a result, many companies are outsourcing their data center management  needs and reaping the benefits of reduced costs and increased productivity. Doing so allows them to focus their resources on what they do best—their core business competency—and leave the specialized work of managing their technology infrastructure to an outside service provider. 

You may have also experienced some unexpected growing pains. Your business has grown past the point where you can manage it all on your own or with a small team, but hiring new employees is out of the question right now because you don't have the space or the budget for it. 

You may have thought about outsourcing some of your business processes, but there's one area that you might be hesitant to outsource: information technology. You might think that IT is too important and integral to your company, or too risky to hand over to an outside company. 

The truth is that many companies are finding huge benefits from outsourcing their data center management, and many different types of companies are doing it. Here are just a few reasons why more and more businesses are deciding to outsource to managed IT services: 

1) No need for in-house IT data center expertise. When your company was smaller, you could handle managing your own IT systems and handling any problems that came up—or at least you had someone on staff who knew how to do it. Now that your company is bigger, though, those issues can get more complex and time-consuming, and if none of your existing employees know how to solve them. 

2) It's hard to find good help! Many companies struggle to find in-house staff with the right experience, so they turn to an outside agency to get top-quality work at reasonable rates. 

3) If your company already has an IT department and is looking for support for specific tasks, like infrastructure maintenance and data center management, an IT managed services provider can handle these kinds of day-to-day tasks for you so your team can focus on strategic projects. 

To summarize 

At SSI, we know that data center management is a balancing act. It's hard to find the right amount of support to meet your objectives and needs, while keeping your costs down. 

We believe that outsourcing data center management should be a simple and affordable way for you to get the support you need.

You don't have to hire a full-time team—you can outsource the work to us and let our experts help you meet your goals on time, every time.