An Explanation Of Colocation
A facility that allows businesses to rent spaces to store servers and computing hardware for the storage of data is called a colocation. These colocation centers can be single server colocation facilities or multi server colocation facilities.
Most of these facilities are single server colocation facilities because most businesses do not want to share servers or hardware. The way a colocation works is that the colocation facility provides the physical security, the building, the power, and the bandwidth. The customer of the colocation facility provides the servers and the storage.
Colocation facilities have now started to upsell their clients so that besides renting server and storage space they now have access to managed services as well. What the managed services will do is support the customers and help them in accomplishing their business initiatives. The colocation facilities lease their spaces in the form of cabinets, rooms, or racks.
Why Businesses Choose Colocations
There are many different reasons why businesses choose colocations to house their servers and storage. The number one reason is cost because maintaining and updating a large computing facility can be extremely expensive.
The colocations were not that popular in the past with cloud service providers but because of the cost effectiveness they have become extremely popular. There are a few downsides to a business using a colocation. The first is travel expenses. The reason why is because at times the equipment needs to be touched physically for repairs or for any other reason.
The business may also find themselves locked into a long term rental contract that they can not renegotiate the rates on. These are the two main things that can negatively affect the business when they are using a colocation. So it is extremely important that when the business is signing a contract that they read the entire colocation service agreement so they can be aware of all fees and hidden rates.
The Steps To Finding A Reliable Colocation
When a business is looking for a reliable colocation facility they should not always take price into consideration. It is like the old saying goes, you get what you pay for. Looking for value and for a good price should be done but that should not just be the only basis. The business should take into consideration does the colocation have security, good customer service, and redundancy.
Let’s elaborate more on the physical security evaluation of a colocation facility. It is extremely important to protect your data storage and servers. So this is what you want to look for in regards to security at the colocation facilities. The business wants to ensure that the colocation facility has either key cards or biometric technology to gain access to the facility. The business should want to ensure that the facility has 24/7 staffing or security on the premises. Lastly, the business should want to make sure that the colocation facility uses the latest and most up-to-date data center security procedures .
Here are other things that the business should take into consideration when trying to find a reliable colocation facility. They are the rack capacity, flexibility, hardware and maintenance, data center location, connectivity, backups, bandwidth, and power. As long as the colocation facility meets all of the above standards it is worth moving your service off site.
These types of facilities that are proven and trusted would allow your organization to maintain control over the data, to be in an excellent colocated IT infrastructure, and at the same time as saving your business money. It is obvious that this is a smart move for any business who uses cloud server hosting to use a colocation facility to house their server and data storage.
The reason why is because their data will be properly protected and it will ultimately save the business money.
