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| Musings from the Factory |
Thought we’d ask before your clients do.
Data storage in the US is cheap compared to Australian based storage. Yes, OK you knew that but this is exacerbated for Cloud Providers who need massive storage which is best accommodated by ‘server farming’ in the USA.
Multi-tenancy is a benefit for all Clouds, it is how providers make it work, just US farms are huge!
This is Apple's billion dollar 46.5 Hectare server farm, now under construction 65 KMS from Maiden, North Carolina in the USA.
According to Data Centre Knowledge the new facility is nearly five times the size of Apple’s giant data centre in Newark, California.
Big hey? That’s nothing! Apple doesn’t even rank in the top server farm segment.
So yes, data storage on US Server Farms is cheap, but what is the downside for us non-US peeps?
The Australian Privacy laws ‘the Privacy Act 1988 (Cth)’ may not be in force over your client data if it is held outside of Australia. Changes to Australia’s privacy laws are underway through the Australian Law Reform Commission's Report 108; For Your Information - Australian Privacy Law and Practice (2008) and may make your responsibility for client data privacy more precise.
It has always been essential you understand what laws protect your data when stored outside of Australia. Since the US Patriot Act came into force, data privacy in the USA has become a very hot topic. Academia sees Harvard University’s Berkman Centre for Internet & Society running a CYBERSPACE PRIVACY module; have a look at module five for an overview.
Commentators argue your client data stored on US based servers may be subpoenaed and disclosed without your prior knowledge or consent.
Just beware of your responsibilities for privacy of client data under the act and make a conscious decision as to who you use to host data, including where servers are located.
(Lots of underscore in this paragraph to remind you that your data is your data; do not rely solely on your provider to ensure all is good. Check their webiste and if needs be ASK for definitions (and get responses in writing) regards privacy as you make the choice where your client data is held. OK, I promise no more underscores in this log)
No, we are not writing about a celebrity party, our subject is a Cloud client-experience essential.
The time taken between a user making a request to a website and receiving the response back on their screen is called ‘latency’ in tech-talk and is measured in milliseconds (ms). A common example of latency is the time taken from you clicking the ‘search’ button on Google till you have the results back on your screen.
Latency is a major influence on client-experience; slow responses are not acceptable especially when work is involved.
Some are solely controlled by the user with the most obvious being internet connection speed and quality. In many cases Small Business take the cheapest Internet Service Provider (ISP) product being pedalled on the market.
While that may be OK for an occasional (or if you have teenage children a seemingly permanent) home internet connection, it does not meet business needs where the connection is essential.
A disruption to home internet browsing, updating the facebook page or an Instant Message may cause grizzles but an outage or high latency when processing an ABA file to pay employees or placing an order with a supplier can cripple a business.
What is the Service Level Agreement (SLA) of your Internet Service Provider? What guarantee do you have of a robust connection when you need it? Ask about:
The remainder are the Cloud Provider’s responsibility and cover a plethora of infrastructure decisions from their internet ‘backbone’ connection through server configuration and resource allocation.
These you need to discover from the Provider’s website and if that does not give adequate answers, ask them and get the response in writing.
One given significant influence on latency is the distance between you or your clients and the servers holding your data. Modern fibre-optic cables carry data at incredibly fast speeds, even 1000 times faster than your new gigabit network, that said the distance data travels is a very major consideration.
We run continual automated tests for access to our website and client servers (in addition to a dedicated 24X7X52 monitoring team and contracted supplier specialist for client server access) using VisualRoute. This alerts us to issues and gives an ongoing latency measure for access to our website and servers.
Using VisualRoute from our Melbourne located test machine we can compare latency for access to a standard data packet on Australian based servers compared to that same data packet on USA based servers. The results are enlightening.
Latency on our Nous Factory Australian servers is under 50 ms, yet latency for the same request to Supplier x ’s US based server is around 250ms. Accessing Nous Factory's Australian server is five times faster than the USA based server of Supplier x.
Wrong. 100 ms is about the limit for having the user feel that the system is reacting instantaneously according to usability guru Jakob Neilsen.
There are many studies on latency tolerance or how users relate to response times and their reaction has not changed in over 30 Years. In business, milliseconds count towards client and employee satisfaction let alone productivity.
Nous Factory’s Australian servers sit comfortably 50% under this 100 ms threshold, while Supplier x are double-bad (and a half) with their USA based servers. How do you want your customer experience?
Sample results of our study:
When we connect a local machine to a server over the internet our data travels between multiple networks and so ‘hop’ between these networks.
Every hop is significant as it adds another opportunity for a break in data transmission, another junction to fail and it is the weakest hop (or link) that makes the chain; if one connection fails, our data goes nowhere.
The aim is to reduce the number of hops between our employees or customers and our data.
A lot can be said about the quality of the networks our data travels over, but there is little we can do outside of minimising the distance and hops we force our data to travel.
Again using VisualRoute from our Melbourne located test machine we can compare the number of hops needed to access an Australian based server compared to accessing a USA based server. The results are again enlightening.
Sample results of our study:
This shows accessing Supplier x’s USA based servers involves 33% more hops than accessing Australian servers housing Nous Factory data, every server request and every server response. Plainly that is a 33% greater chance of a total failure in the data connection.
Further, while we will not go deep into Packet Loss here, working with Supplier x USA based server saw 20% of our test data fail to get there.
Who offers the Service Level Agreement for all those connections and how many of your data packets didn’t make it?
Cloud Computing suppliers do save money hosting on US based servers, with luck they pass that saving on to end-clients.
Before you migrate to the Cloud you have due diligence to complete:
Business-Grade Internet connection
You need a Business-Grade Internet Service Provider (ISP) connection to all of your business premise. Suppliers like our SupaDupa Hosting do not meet business needs . Do your research and ask questions before you buy.
Nous Factory uses both Telstra and Optus mixed as ADSL and cable broadband into every office to ensure connectivity. Rather complicated and we are not recommending either but it works. (Our data centres go direct to black fibre backbones; different scenario than this conversation)
Data Privacy
Know where your data would be stored before you sign an agreement. Should that be outside of Australia ensure your decision is a conscious one after seeking professional advice on risk, ramifications and the need for advising your clients their data may be stored outside Australia.
We can’t over emphasise the need for you to make a careful decision regarding data storage and privacy. We expect the laws covering this will be tested soon.
Nous Factory clients are on Australian based servers. We made a business decision during our inception to ensure all client data is local. A fully detailed disclosure is made in our privacy statement.
Latency & Hops
We are not telling you to only consider Cloud Providers who have Australian based servers. All we want is for you to be aware of the influence latency has on your client's/ employee's experience and productivity.
Equally that every hop connecting you to your Cloud data increases the risk of a total outage, so minimise hops where you can.
If you are looking at a provider and cannot establish latency or hops, let us know and our support team will run a VisualRoute map for you to determine the latency and hops without issue; they love this stuff!
