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Was just reading through an article on data centers as linked: http://www.theage.com.au/it-pro/business-it/what-to-look-for-in-a-data-centre-20131122-hv3qj.html

Appropriate quote from article below:

Location

CBD or near CBD locations are favoured because of better connectively and for customer access, for which demand was increasing, Beavis said. Offset against this is a minimum separation of 25 kilometres required by many customers for compliance purposes.

What are the benefits of having a data center at least 25km (or certain distance) from the customer's office?

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  • This question appears to be off-topic because it is about legality. Mar 24, 2014 at 2:27
  • Apologies, I should have specified, it isn't for any specific compliance requirement, just asking what the potential benefit might have been by this distance between sites
    – Nobo
    Mar 24, 2014 at 3:28
  • Might want to update the question with that, to keep it from being closed. The 25km distance is new to me... and seems pretty pointless and stupid, but in general, yeah, geographic separation would protect against geographic events... storms, natural disasters, [possibly] morons cutting a fiber optic cable with a backhoe, etc. Just not convinced that a distance of 25 kilometers is good for anything. Mar 24, 2014 at 4:16

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Assuming a geographic "event" that affects the business office you want the DC to be far enough away so that it isn't affected by the same geographic "event" that would cause the business information systems/assets to also be lost or become unavailable. This would allow the business to set up a "business continuity/disaster recovery" office that could then access these information systems/assets in order to continue to operate.

I know of several data centers that offer a business continuity/disaster recovery "war room" for businesses to set up in in the event of the loss or unavailability of their office.

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  • Ah that makes sense, didn't even think of that. I was dreaming up all sorts of elaborate scenarios requiring distance between sites. Thanks!
    – Nobo
    Mar 24, 2014 at 1:41
  • But then you really need to check locality. 25km in a earthquake zone may not be enough ;) But good catch - yeah.
    – TomTom
    Mar 24, 2014 at 5:14
  • 25 miles from the primary data center. A secondary data center would typically be further away. The primary data center needs to be reasonably far enough away to be unaffected by a geographic "event" but close enough for the business personnel to travel there quickly.
    – joeqwerty
    Mar 24, 2014 at 15:12

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