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Businesses today have complex IT needs. Need such as high uptime, various computing services, disaster recovery plans, ensuring regulatory compliance and so much more. While great features facilitate better efficiency and productivity, they also need a robust and reliable system to be able to manage evolving needs and ensure business continuity.
This is possible only when such businesses opt for more than one data center. Doing so gives their system the stability it needs to facilitate seamless and effective operations.
This article will explore what a data center does and how having distributed data centers can help your business make a more informed decision when choosing a VoIP provider.
What is a data center and what does it do?
According to Paloalto, a data center is a facility that centralises an organisation’s shared IT operations and equipment to store, process and share data. Data centers can be off-premise and located anywhere globally, without the need to exist on-premise.
These centers can house all of your centralised IT operations safely in the cloud with no need for costly maintenance of on-site hardware. Data centers serve as a backup too. Should anything happen to your phone system or in case of an outage, having data stored in multiple centers decreases your chances of losing all your information.
Several different factors can affect the reliability and quality of your phone service. However, none more so than the location and number of data centers your VoIP provider has available. So, customers should think carefully about the provider they choose and enquire about the number of data centers they can access with them.
Put simply, the more data centers your hosted phone provider provides, the more reliable your service will be, and the higher quality your service will be too.
Backup your data
We all get a sinking feeling when our system crashes and we lose valuable work. It is frustrating and inconvenient to be slowed down by such IT issues, to say the least. This is something that data centers aim to prevent from occurring.
When choosing a VoIP provider, be sure to check how frequently you back up your data. With so much information stored within your phone systems, such as customer history, preferences and more, you will want to protect it as much as you possibly can.
If you lose this data, you may miss out on orders or even lose customers. As a business owner, you need to do all that you can to prevent this from happening.
Providers who backup data at frequent intervals are much more likely to be able to help you in your time of need. They can ensure that your business is up and running without any major delays.
But why stop there?
You can also consider looking for providers with data centers in multiple locations. If a natural disaster were to hit a particular area, providers with multiple data centers in just one location would lose all their data stored there. The end result? You would be left without a vital part of your business information corpus.
On the other hand, if the provider were to have data centers in multiple locations, destroying one of them would still not result in any data loss. Such providers will be able to restore backups quicker, keep their customers online, and help them communicate with minimal downtime.
Having a presence in different geographical locations also means that the provider can better serve the needs of global clients. Thus, as a business owner, you should look for a provider who gives you numerous options and shouldn’t go for someone only on the basis of their prices or location.
Faster speeds and connectivity
Business moves fast, and if you wanna get ahead of the competition, you need to look for a provider who has distributed data centers. Providers with only one data center may struggle to give you the speed and connectivity you need. This owes to the fact that the bandwidth reduces when one data center is shared between your business and countless other businesses worldwide.
Having multiple data centers fixes this issue. Instead of businesses having to rely on bandwidth from one center, they’ll be able to enjoy equal speeds by utilising bandwidth from different centers.
Moreover, if that a business with only one data center is down for some reason, organisations will have to halt their processes and may incur losses in the process. A multi-data center strategy ensures that businesses are online 24x7x365 and have easy access to their phone system or important data.
They’re also able to benefit from edge computing, which essentially refers to pushing data computation and storage closer to the edge of the network and away from a centralised server. Doing so improves server response time and consequently, saves bandwidth.
Remember, connectivity is key to keeping your business running and competitive, and any downtime could be a chance for customers to move onto your competitors. Ensure this doesn’t happen by opting for a provider with multiple data centers to keep you going at all times.
Grow your business with nothing holding you back
Your VoIP provider should want your business to grow as much as you do. Multi-data center providers have the space and bandwidth that you need to be able to scale exponentially as and when you want to.
They can simply add lines to your phone system with no issues and accommodate growing information as your business expands. Those with only single data centers may struggle to achieve the same, and you could experience outages or downtime as the server struggles to deal with the amount of demand being placed on it.
Whether you see your business growing now or years later, opting for a provider with multiple data centers will ultimately save you time and money. You can then invest these resources directly in supporting your business’ growth.
Bottom line
While they may not be the most glamorous feature offered by a cloud phone system provider, data centers are the backbone of the system itself. Having multiple centers can provide an amazing array of benefits to your business, all of which contribute to consistent performance and long-term growth.
If you want peace of mind and a future-ready hosted telephony system, contact us today at 1888-859-0450 or send an email to [email protected] to discuss this with our expert team.
