Practice · Data Center & Resiliency
Data center, colocation, outsourcing and disaster recovery, evaluated by people who have owned the facility and lived with the contract — not by analysts reading a vendor brief.
Why This One Is Different
Most technology mistakes are recoverable inside a budget cycle. Infrastructure is not. A colocation contract, an outsourcing agreement or a recovery arrangement sets your cost base, your risk posture and your options for years — and the exit is usually more expensive than the original decision.
The current market makes that worse. Server memory and storage have seen roughly 100–200% cost increases, driven largely by AI demand for the same components, and colocation space and power are up roughly 20% in major US markets. Every path costs more than it did two years ago, which changes the arithmetic on build, buy, host and outsource simultaneously.
This practice is advice from people who have drawn the floor plan, balanced the cooling, negotiated the recovery contract and run the test at 2am. Successful disaster-recovery tests at CNA, SIRVA, DeVry and Pierce Law Group — not modelled, run.
Engagements
| Organization | Category | Scope | Result |
|---|---|---|---|
| McDonald'sIQ4hire · 2001–03 | Outsourcing · DC | Led the data center and service-outsourcing RFP and selection: moved McDonald's into an Exodus data center, outsourced IT operations, then transitioned to ACS for full application and infrastructure support across 30,000+ locations in 121 countries. | $600M ProgramSaved $72M |
| CNA InsuranceIQ4hire · 2001–04 | DR · Recovery Contract | Led a $48M disaster-recovery initiative and negotiated a recovery contract delivering 5× application coverage (SunGard / VMware). | $48M DRSaved $5M · Avoided $21M |
| SIRVADirector, Global Head · 2004–08 | Consolidation · DR | Consolidated data centers and built out disaster recovery and swing space, with successful recovery tests. | Consolidated |
| Adtalem / DeVryGlobal Head, Digital · 2008–12 | Migration · Hosting · DR | Migrated from Sun to x86 at Rackspace, which made replication and disaster recovery possible, then ran successful recovery tests. | Sun → x86 |
| True Value CompanyEnterprise Architecture · 2013–18 | Facilities · DR | Reconfigured HVAC, cooling, power and cabling in the home-office data center, and built out disaster recovery. | DR Built |
| Pierce Law GroupInterim CIO · 2012–13 | Upgrade · DR | Upgraded the firm's data center and ran successful disaster-recovery tests. | DR Tested |
| Designed Alloy ProductsSteve · Director IT · 2008–12 | DC Build · DR | Designed and built the corporate data center, and designed and implemented disaster recovery and business continuation for the manufacturer. | DC Built |
| Empire TodaySteve · 2006–08 | Hot Stand-by · BC | Key member of the disaster-recovery team that designed and implemented a hot stand-by location and business continuity plan. Assisted in the design of the El Paso call center and data center. | Hot Stand-by |
| AVSCSteve · Director, IT Ops · 2001–05 | DC Contracts · DR | Negotiated maintenance contracts for all aspects of the data center, and directed the creation and testing of the company disaster-recovery plan. | $7M Budget |
| IQ4hireSteve · Infrastructure Mgr · 2000–01 | DC Build | Designed and created the firm's own data center on a $1.5M budget, along with the office and remote networks behind it. | Launch Team |
What We Evaluate
What it costs to leave, how long it takes, who owns the data and the images, and what happens at renewal. The exit terms are negotiable exactly once — before you sign.
A recovery contract is a promise until someone runs the test. We score declared RTO and RPO against what the provider will actually commit to in writing, and against what we have seen hold up under a real test.
Rack, power draw, cross-connects, remote hands and growth headroom. Colocation quotes compare badly until they are normalized, and the differences are rarely where the sales deck points.
Service credits that do not cover the loss are not an SLA. We look at measurement method, exclusions, escalation and what actually triggers a remedy.