Choosing the right data center Location is a significant decision for companies aiming to promote their online presence. A well-thought-out data center location strategy ensures optimal performance, reliability, and accessibility for digital services and applications.
At Nexcess, we have a wide selection of data centers, and you can migrate your site to any available locations by obtaining a new hosting plan at any of them. Our data centers are managed for continuous uptime with a reliable power supply system, excellent connectivity using multiple providers, cooling systems, and a high level of security.
Key points
After reading this guide, you should come away with the following information and procedural guidelines:
- Data center location considerations.
- Common characteristics of the best data center locations
- Your data center location strategy with Nexcess.
- Changing plan size or data center locations with Nexcess.
- Starting a new hosting plan located in an optimal region of the world for your audience.
- Canceling an old hosting plan located in a nonoptimal region of the world for your audience.
- Having the best geographic location of your data center
Data center location considerations
Website server location influences the speed data travels between the server and the end-user's device. When selecting a data center location, consider the geographical distribution of your user base. Determine where the majority of your website visitors are located.
Furthermore, web traffic analytics can provide insights into the geographic distribution of your audience. Look for patterns and concentrations of visitors to identify regions or countries with the highest traffic volume.
Geographic location
Choosing a data center that is close to most of your users can minimize latency and improve the overall user experience. This is because data has a shorter distance to travel, reducing the time it takes for requests to reach the server and for content to be delivered back to the user. For example, if your customers are primarily located in a specific region, it makes sense to choose a data center located nearby to reduce network latency and ensure faster data delivery. This enhanced performance leads to a smoother browsing experience and higher user satisfaction.
Performance of your website directly affects your SEO ratings. Search engines prioritize user experience. If your website loads slowly, it may lose ranking in search engines. This negatively impacts your business, resulting in fewer visitors to your website.
Robust internet connectivity
Connectivity is critical to any data center strategy, as it directly impacts the performance, reliability, and accessibility of hosted services. Look for data centers that offer reliable high-speed internet connections and access to multiple network providers. Robust connectivity ensures your business can scale and adapt to changing bandwidth requirements while minimizing the risk of network disruptions.
Network equipment and servers
Within a data center, the network equipment and servers compose the core infrastructure responsible for processing and delivering website content to end users. Network equipment, including routers, switches, and firewalls, manages data transmission within the data center and between the data center and external networks.
Modern servers, equipped with powerful processors, memory, and storage capabilities, handle website requests and serve content to visitors. The efficiency and reliability of this hardware directly impact website performance. High-quality network equipment ensures stable and fast data transmission, while robust servers can handle increased traffic and deliver content swiftly. Upgrading to the latest hardware technology can enhance website responsiveness and reduce latency, resulting in a better user experience.
Reliability
Website issues can have significant adverse effects. Downtime or slow loading times frustrate visitors, leading them to abandon the site altogether. An inferior user experience can decrease engagement, resulting in the loss of potential customers. Interruptions can negatively impact customer satisfaction. Returning visitors who encounter frequent unexpected outages may become dissatisfied and seek alternative websites for their needs.
Common characteristics of the best data center locations
Selecting the optimal data center location is a crucial decision for businesses seeking to maximize website performance, reliability, and accessibility. The following important factors should direct your data center location strategy:
- Location, location, location! Geographic location is a crucial component of any effective data center location strategy. The physical location of a data center can significantly impact the speed at which data travels between the server and the end user. Websites hosted in data centers located closer to their target audience experience lower latency. This proximity results in faster load times and overall user experience. Conversely, data centers situated farther away may introduce delays in data transmission, leading to slower website performance.
- Robust connectivity. Top data center locations offer robust connectivity options, including access to multiple internet service providers (ISPs) and high-speed fiber-optic networks. Look for facilities with multiple network providers and diverse network paths, allowing traffic to be rerouted in case of outages or disruptions. A well-connected data center ensures reliable and low-latency connectivity, facilitating seamless data transmission and optimal performance for hosted websites.
- Controlled environment. Effective cooling systems and environmental controls are essential for maintaining optimal operating conditions within the data center. Prime locations offer efficient cooling solutions such as precision air conditioning, hot/cold aisle containment, and advanced HVAC systems to regulate temperature and humidity levels, preventing equipment overheating and optimizing energy efficiency.
- Redundancy. The best data center locations boast reliable and resilient power infrastructure, including redundant power sources, backup generators, and uninterruptible power supply (UPS) systems. A stable power supply is critical for maintaining continuous operations and preventing service disruptions during power outages or grid failures.
- Managed risk. Risk management in the data center ecosystem is essential to your website. Incorporating power infrastructure considerations into your data center location strategy allows you to ensure reliable power supply, minimize the risk of downtime, and maintain continuous operations for critical infrastructure.
With multiple data center options available, understanding how location impacts website performance, load speeds, and SEO ratings can guide you toward making the best choice for your needs. By carefully evaluating these data center location considerations, businesses can identify and select the best locations to meet their specific needs for reliability, performance, and security.
Your data center location strategy with Nexcess
Prior to the creation of a new web hosting plan with Nexcess, you should devise a game plan. You should study our data center locations and assess which one aligns with the market segment your website will serve.
North America
Our Southfield, Michigan data center boasts multiple redundancies to ensure uninterrupted operations, with power provided by DTE Energy for over 3MW and an N+1 backup generator system supported by a diesel generator for added redundancy and resilience. We offer blazing-fast 10 Gbps speeds with four diverse paths, guaranteeing robust and reliable network performance.
Located in the heart of the San Francisco Bay Area, our San Jose data center is an ideal choice for businesses in and around Silicon Valley. Power is distributed through two separate entries from redundant Silicon Valley substations. Redundant electricity is provisioned by an uninterruptible backup generator in an N+1 configuration, which is also backed up by a diesel-fueled generator. Multiple bandwidth suppliers ensure continuous connectivity.
Find out more about our other data centers in North America:
- Dearborn, Michigan data center
- Miami, Florida data center
- Lansing, Michigan data center
- Phoenix, Arizona data center
Europe
Our data center in Byfleet, Surrey, United Kingdom, has a good connection to London and the rest of the United Kingdom. Furthermore, with fantastic networking capabilities, low-latency connections can be established in over 600 cities worldwide.
Our Amsterdam data center, located in one of Europe's most well-connected cities, is ideal for projects which operate in the EU market. It has redundant connectivity provided by multiple Tier 1 providers (Level 3, TeliaSonera, with access to AMS-IX, LINX NoVa and NL-IX).
Hosting in our West Sussex, UK data center means having a local gateway to the United Kingdom and Western Europe.
Asia-Pacific
Our data center in Sydney, Australia is an excellent solution for businesses targeting the markets of Australia, New Zealand, and Southeast Asia (such as Japan, South Korea, and Vietnam).
Changing plan size or data center locations with Nexcess
With Nexcess, you can resize your hosing plan at any time, while remaining on it. The plan types involved determined how the resizing is done. The downgrade/upgrade procedure between two multi-tenant plans may be completed routinely, as can a resizing at any moment between single-tenant plans.
Downgrading or upgrading between a multi-tenant plan and a single-tenant plan
When you downgrade/upgrade between multi-tenant plan and a single-tenant plan, you must migrate your data to a new server.
- Upgrading plan ≤M to ≥L with migration within your Nexcess website hosting plans
- Downgrading plan ≥L to ≤M with migration within your Nexcess website hosting plans
Changing data center locations
To change a data center location — and the physical location of your websites — at any time for a plan, there are a few more steps to be aware of:
1. You must buy an entirely new plan with us at the new desired Nexcess data center location.
2. Then, before closing out the old plan with us, use any of multiple migration options to move a website from the old plan's set of websites to the new plan's set of websites. This would have to be done per website to be kept from the old plan.
3. Once the migration has completed, the old plan can be canceled.
Note that at the time of this article's publication, there is not functionality within the Nexcess Client Portal for migrating websites and a plan to a new plan tool. Therefore, reviewing the procedure documented in the next section.
Starting a new hosting plan located in an optimal region of the world for your audience
To start hosting your website in one of our data centers, you need to follow these steps:
1. Log into your account in the Nexcess Client Portal:
2. In the left sidebar, click the Plans option:
3. In the top right corner, click the Create Plan button.
4. Pick a plan that suits your project based on available resources and click Select followed by Next:
5. Now you can select a data center to host your website in the Server Location field. Evaluate your audience's geographic distribution and choose the data center nearest to the majority of your users to reduce latency and ensure faster load times:
6. You can actively improve user satisfaction, SEO rankings, and website engagement by picking the appropriate data center according to your audience's region.
7. Click Continue when you have made a final decision regarding the optimal geographic location for your plan and its websites.
8. After clicking Сontinue. you must wait a few minutes while your new plan is configured. By going back to the Plans list, you can monitor the progress of the new plan configuration:
9. If you already have a website hosted with us, you can migrate it to the newly established location associated with the plan just created.
10. To do this, follow all the steps described above to create a new plan.
11. Then, you can then create a ticket to migrate your website to the new plan.
Canceling an old hosting plan located in a nonoptimal region of the world for your audience
Once your website has been moved to the new location, you can simply cancel your old plan:
Having the best geographic location of your data center
Selecting the right geographic location of your data center is a critical decision in determining the reliability, performance, and security of your online infrastructure. The geographic location of the data center plays a crucial role in minimizing latency, enhancing connectivity, and optimizing performance for end users.
Managed Magento hosting plans
Fully managed Magento hosting is when your hosting provider optimizes, manages, and assists with server and Magento software. It allows you to focus on business and frontend development, instead of administrative tasks. Fully managed Magento hosting is perfect for growing ecommerce businesses without IT staff or DevOps support.
By carefully considering factors such as geographic location, connectivity, power infrastructure, and security measures, you can make better decisions producing the outcomes desired to meet your specific needs and objectives.
Whether launching a website, managing an e-commerce platform, or running mission-critical applications, our global network of data centers, strategically positioned worldwide, provides the reliability and performance you need to succeed. Contact us to get started and elevate your online presence with us.
