CHCA's Data Center Solution

To mitigate risks, CHCA has partnered with a tier 1 data center in the Tampa Bay area to provide a solid foundation for its members’ growth in the utilization of technology.

Tightly Controlled Physical Security

Every precaution to ensure the physical well being of the servers that host the CHCA applications and data is taken. At considerable expense, CHCA migrated to the Qwest Cyber Center in Tampa for dedicated hosting services, managed storage/backup, and redundant data communications. With its nationwide infrastructure and multiple cyber center locations, partnering with Qwest allows CHCA to evaluate disaster recovery options not available to independent or stand-alone data center operations. The Tampa location’s enhanced power and communications redundancy and depth of defense against physical threats include:

• Structurally-enhanced building to withstand high winds
• Class D evacuation zone for flooding
• 50,000+ sq ft of Datacenter space
• N+2 services on Power & Cooling – seven generators onsite
• Cooling on generator
• Very High Level of Physical Security – Biometric access, cameras
• System monitoring and reporting services
• Power Management Monitoring

Reliable and Direct Connectivity

CHCA utilizes Internet standard technologies to provide for secure and robust communications between its main data center and its member organizations. At the core of these technologies, Virtual Private Network (VPN) is applied to ensure the secure communications at the network layer. Connectivity to CHCA’s datacenter system can be established by its members using a national MPLS network where available or by utilizing the Internet subject to throughput requirements being met. Within the datacenter, CHCA maintains a committed rate of data bandwidth with automatic bursting to higher levels to meet network traffic demands.

Backups and Server Redundancy

CHCA’s strategy to address data loss and service availability issues have been implemented through a system of processes that provide for nightly backups of data and redundant systems for critical elements. CHCA provides multiple levels of data backup through the retention of up to midnight data both on local storage and tape. To address the long term goal of data retention and recovery, CHCA has implemented a disk-to-disk backup to tape strategy that includes both local secure storage of data tapes and secured offsite vaulted storage. Server redundancy has been implemented to provide computational resources and services in the event of hardware failures with systems having critical elements such as cooling, power, disk drives, etc.