Bell Business Insights newsletter

An interview with Bell data centre experts Joe Mardini and James Beer

Imagine a data centre designed to meet the changing demands of today's enterprise data. When Bell set out to develop its new facilities for the greater Toronto, Montréal and Ottawa regions, it recognized that businesses needed better ways to manage their growing reliance on data and computing power. To find out more about the strategy behind its new state-of-the-art data centres, we talked to Joe Mardini, Bell's Vice President of Data Centre Solutions, and James Beer, Director of Data Centre Strategy and Operations. They revealed how Bell is staying at the forefront of power management, network connectivity and managed services.

Business Insights: Thank you for joining us. Joe, can you begin by telling us about the reasoning behind Bell's recent investment in data centres?

Joe Mardini: More and more customers are thinking twice about tying up capital in data centres, especially with the huge growth in data, applications and power-intensive IT equipment. Data centres are becoming very sophisticated, and adding to our existing national network of data centres was a natural move for us in order to continue providing highly available, highly redundant data services in conjunction with our leading MPLS network.

BI: Why are organizations moving away from an in-house provisioning model?

James Beer: Our customers have typically exhausted network capabilities or are having trouble getting sufficient connectivity to their own off-site data centres. Also, new IT equipment like blade servers are consuming as much as 10?20 kilowatt per rack compared to traditional power consumption of 2?3 kilowatt per rack. The increased power and cooling requirements are making refitting difficult and often prohibitively expensive. That leaves them with the choice of building a new data centre or engaging with a provider like Bell for co-location or managed services. Switching data centre infrastructure to an operational expense model appeals to a lot of organizations.

BI: So what sets the new Bell data centres apart, Joe?

Mardini: There are many differences, like our repeatable planning process and our approach to security and resilience, not to mention their incredible environmental efficiencies. But two differentiators really stand out: standardization at the national level and our power reservation system. Organizations with a national presence will appreciate that we have data centres in all of Canada's largest urban centres, all built to the same standard and specifications. You get a common experience no matter where you go, with national capacity management and the SEC5970/SAS 70 dual standard across the country. Customers looking for disaster recovery services at multiple sites deal with the same team of people, the same contracts, the same services implemented at those sites. That standardization across our portfolio is a clear strength.

BI: What makes the power reservation system so unique?

Beer: First of all, I should note that we strive for low power utilization (PUE) in our data centres, which reduces our carbon footprint?a key goal for Bell. Some of our current builds will have industry leading numbers. But the most significant thing is that we also provide customers with specific allotments for power, space and cooling. That's not common in the industry. When more power is needed in one area, administrators will typically borrow from another, potentially robbing a customer of power, or tripping breakers and taking equipment offline. It's like airplane seats: some airlines oversell their seats and people get kicked off the flight. We don't do that. You are always assured of the total capacity for which you have contracted. The payoff is better uptime and reliability. We can also accommodate among the highest power densities of any commercial data centre?upgrading your equipment will not overtax our power, cooling or network capacities.

BI: Bell is known for its robust network. How does that impact data centre services?

Beer: There are four main ways that the Bell network impacts our data centre services. First of all, our data centres are located on or in proximity to our transport network, which gives clients direct access to the most robust bandwidth and transport in the country. Second, our data centres are all in Canada, and all are built to the same security and resiliency specifications. These things help with resiliency and compliance. Third, with Bell data centres you have continuity of service: our data centre team never has to sort out connectivity or bandwidth issues with their carrier partner. We own the network, we own the data centres, so we're able to more effectively manage customer's bandwidth demands. Fourth, we're Canada's largest Internet and telecommunications services provider. If we ever felt the need to add network capacity to meet demand, we have the wherewithal to do so.

BI: There is a lot of talk about the cloud. Joe, can you explain to us where the Bell data centres fit into organizations' cloud strategies?

Mardini: Every cloud computing offering is housed in a data centre. The cloud demands lots of power, lots of security; the kind of infrastructure that we've just completed building. But CIOs don't normally come to our data centre team talking about cloud computing. They are looking to reduce infrastructure costs, and CTOs or CEOs want to deliver better functionality to users. So when we talk with clients, the conversation revolves around providing infrastructure, creating value and reducing cost. Cloud is another way of delivering value, it's another tool, and we're happy to talk about it to CIOs as one way they can innovate in order to help users reach their goals.

BI: So Bell provides cloud computing services?

Mardini: We can and do provide cloud computing?that's the short answer. Clients can house cloud computing infrastructure in our data centres, or they can leverage our own cloud services. But the longer answer is that our new data centre capacity gives us the flexibility to offer a full range of services. Yes, we supply clients with secure, reliable space, power, cooling and connectivity for their IT equipment, and they can also add on a variety of managed services from Bell, have us manage their equipment, or create a cloud computing model within our data centres, with or without our assistance. There is no longer just one model of outsourced data centre?today you have to adapt to client needs. I invite customers to come see for themselves how we're doing that.

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