Telecommunications - Carriers Different service providers/carriers does not guarantee diversity Carriers often share cables, routes, and buildings Carriers often re-engineer routes Two diversely routed circuits from the same carrier may be re-

engineered to overlap unless your contract ensures diversity for the circuits

Telecommunications - Carriers Diverse underground telecommunications entrances with diverse

routes to multiple service provider point of presences [POPs] (i.e., where service provider provides connections to local carriers)

Requirement specified in TIA and BICSI standards is 20 m (66 ft) separation between building entrances and along entire route to service provider POPs and higher level service provider locations (e.g., Network Access Points [NAPs] or higher level carrier offices)

Telecommunications - Carriers Tier 1 service providers in the data center (AT&T, CenturyLink, Cogent,

Deutsche Telekom, GTT, Level 3, NTT, Sprint, Verizon, XO) Latency to other data centers, offices, and customers Does colo owner provide network for access to multiple service

providers? If so, what connection types/speeds and services are available (e.g., DDoS protection, traffic monitoring)?

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Internet Exchange Is the data center an Internet Exchange (IX) - where several

Internet service providers connect to each other to exchange traffic? These are hubs of the Internet and offer non-ISP customers the ability to connect to multiple service providers.

Some large data centers operate large IXs, but only to customers in their data centers.

Alternative is Open-IX certified data center that is both carrier neutral and data center operator neutral.

Cloud Computing Latency

To multiple cloud service providers for hybrid cloud (to maximize performance and choice of providers)

To enterprise data center if cloud computing at colo interacts with apps at enterprise data center

Does data center switch fabric need to extend to colo? If so, need multiple dark fiber <= 40 km reach of 40/100/400G Ethernet (preferably diversely routed)

Remote Support What type of support and monitoring does the site provide? Local monitoring of network connectivity and traffic (e.g., mitigation

of DDoS attacks, monitoring of traffic level to proactively determine when more bandwidth is needed)?

Can local staff do inventory, installation, configuration, and troubleshooting of equipment and cabling?

Level of expertise, quality of documentation and procedures?

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