If you’re a company owner you understand how important your servers are for your own business. Whether storing customer records to the customers of a service provider, sales histories for a brick-and-mortar merchant, or product information for an eCommerce website, the information stored on personal servers is essential to a company’s success. It’s precious, and the measures needed to maintain it are a critical although pricey element of running any business enterprise.
The only practical solution to data storage was that the use of on-site s
ervers. These servers required care and seldom came cheap. Past the costs of good and hardware employees, of running a server space, the costs accumulate fast. Physical distance temperature regulation, network requirements: All these variables have to all be taken into consideration.
Sure, there are a large number of hosting services out there offering alternatives. When these services cover a vast selection of hosting options, what if you could reduce costs without completely re-doing your present infrastructure? This is more than a distant dream, through the usage of colocation hosting.
But what is colocation and how can it benefit you?
What is Colocation?
Colocation, also known as”Co-location” or”Colo” for short, is a simple concept in its core. Rather than a business storing servers in a server area within their own centers, single server colocation makes it possible for companies to lease electricity and space within a provider data centre. In exchange for a monthly fee, the business owning the servers can use the information centre’s resources while still making use of their hardware and personnel .
Using colocation resembles renting a storage device at a massive storage rental facility.
The organization owns the building. Storage units are extended in the kind of racks and cages, but the contents of those containers would be the personal belongings of their organization. The customer is granted 24/7 access to their servers inside a facility that was strictly tracked. While the gear is stored remotely, for maintaining the servers the responsibility remains with the firm who owns them.
Typically, when purchasing colocation services, the organization provides up the use of bodily security/disaster mitigation processes hardware, electricity use, bandwidth, and the physical space. From that point, their servers must be maintained by the owners .
Pricing for colocation services may vary greatly. Typically this price and the amount of physical space correlate directly. Moreover, the strength of community connectivity each host, and the total amount of on-site support required to keep the servers factor in as well.
Benefits to Colocation Hosting
Unlike when leasing a server, colocation still carries with it a degree of required experience. After all, it’s the same as running your own internal system remotely.
Therefore, paying your personnel and if owning your own hardware are the same whether you store your servers or via a data centre, then what are the benefits of colocation?
Colocation’s biggest advantage is the way it can diminish indirect costs related to hosting servers on-site.
For example: let’s say you’re running a large eCommerce website that is continuing to grow. It’s important to remember that profit and growth come at the cost, while congratulations are in order.
Maybe you’ve managed to get by till today with a rack of servers saved in a back room of your facility. With your business technical needs expanding however, the time has come to consider your next step.
Do you jam more servers?
Can you buy or build a space with space to store your hardware requirements?
Beyond purchasing you have to invest in to keep them operating?
While the capability is just one of the selling points of a dedicated server, what can you do when you just don’t have the space?
Because, instead of building an entirely new space for hardware you are expanding on, colocation is beneficial, you can rent the space you want at a facility built around server maintenance that is optimum. Not only are you preventing the fees associated with building costs, but also, you’re gaining access to the provider’s high quality temperature regulating hardware and their physical and electronic security measures.
These advantages are only scratching at the surface. Data centers rely to maintain themselves and their clients running 24/7. Because of this, they are able to negotiate rests. These savings can then be passed along to clients. This is true of the networks too. They could provide their clients since they need to remain cutting-edge to stay ahead of the competition.
Additionally, a colocation provider’s credibility is dependent on their capacity to provide as close to 100% uptime as possible, utility, and superior service to their clients. This means the IT professionals they employ are the very best in the industry. These data specialists have years of expertise in their own fields and undergo training. Often, customers can even hire them to assist directly during emergencies.
Colocation is also offered by some colocation providers. With colocation, colocation technicians in exchange for an extra fee can maintain a organization’s servers placed in the facilities of the provider.
Benefits of Colocation Hosting
Now no hosting option could ever provide a ideal fix-all for each and every potential issue to businesses. Just like anything, colocation has its own share of disadvantages.
Nearly all colocation services only offer space for companies to store their hardware. This means the level of specialized experience needed to maintain a server is the same if it is stored in house or in a location that is distant.
In other words, simply because you do not see your servers each day does not mean it isn’t still your duty to maintain them.
With colocation services, a business accesses their information by means of a console. This interface allows them make alterations from a space and to interact directly with their servers.
However, what if there is an issue that can’t be solved via the console? Invisibly digitally along with your server won’t be enough
