April 2006

For those that prefer the technical explanation, please jump to the article named, “Co-Location – A Technical View of How It Works.” Otherwise, I will attempt to explain what co-location does and what it means to you.

By now, most of you may have heard terms like – Co-location, Business Continuity, Hurricane Site, and/or Off-Campus data center. Maybe just, “Hey, I heard ITS figured out a way to keep email and the college website up and running during a hurricane evacuation.”

Well these all relate to basically the same thing. Co-location is way of protecting the data you have and use while you work on campus. Think about what you do during the day. You may use Banner, email, your home (H:), and your departmental (S:) drive to save your work. Your work is what we call data.

So what does the co-location do for you? During the day as you are working, your data is being stored on campus and being copied to an off-site hurricane protected building in Tampa. So your data is completely duplicated and available, if needed, for use from the co-location site.

Should we for some reason lose a server on campus; the co-location server will automatically take over. Also during Hurricane season, should we need it, the college business would operate from the co-location site. This is what is called Business Continuity. So it is all good stuff.

Article by: David Pawlowski