Colocation is sort of a funny-sounding word, but it is leaving a huge impact on the business world when it comes to how they run their IT departments. It's no secret that technology is growing in leaps and bounds, especially since the explosion of the internet in the past decade or so. Colocation hosting is simply one of the newest services offered to help businesses keep up and evolve with the increasing pace.
Through a colocation hosting service, businesses are provided the opportunity to set up and own their own server equipment, but instead of storing it at their office, they are placing it in a rack at on off-site data center where the colocation company provides the IPs, bandwidth, power and cooling for the server. Once the server is installed and running off-site, then the business can access that server via the internet just as they would access any other type of website, but they own the hardware.
At this point, you might be wondering why a business would want to consider this and what benefits it can provide. The following lists contain both advantages and disadvantages for colocation hosting.
Advantages of Colocation Hosting:
Provides a greater amount of bandwidth to considerably increase website and server access speeds.
Less expensive than obtaining a comparable amount of bandwidth at your office.
Your Server is stored in a safe and secure location.
It makes necessary upgrades easy to obtain.
The room temperatures always remain perfect for your equipment.
Should you move your business to a new location, your server does not have to move with you.
You have more flexibility and the ability to customize your needs.
You have and full control over your server.
There is less latency so you can focus on your business instead of your server.
Colocation sites offer more power to run your server and backup generators in the event of power outages.
Disadvantages of Colocation Hosting
The initial start-up costs are high.
Colocation hosting is more costly than just your basic web hosting.
You have to purchase your own equipment and make your own updates.
Fluctuating monthly costs due to bandwidth use makes budgeting difficult.
Locating a data center near your location could be challenging.
Maintenance to server must be performed off-site at data center location.
Time restrictions at data center might make access for maintenance less convenient.
Since you are responsible for maintaining your own server, you will need a tech savvy person on your staff. However, some colocation hosting companies' offer managed colocation where they perform any necessary maintenance.
Overall, colocation hosting is a great option for small, medium, and even larger businesses that do not have the space, reliable power, and effective cooling equipment needed to keep their servers up and running on-site. Additionally, a business has access to a much larger amount of bandwidth than they could possibly ever afford on their own.
In the end, if you have someone on your staff who knows how to update and maintain your server equipment and you are able to find a data center location near your place of business, colocation hosting is certainly an option that you should look into as a fast, safe, secure, and reliable way to run all or part of your business.
Sarah Pollock works as a Marketing Writing Coordinator for Global Communications Group, Inc. (GCG). We offer independent and unbiased data center consulting and data center facility tours to ensure that you find the right data center facility. Are you searching for the best data center service provider to support your business hosting and networking needs? At GCG, we represent all of the major data center service providers in the US and abroad. Data center solutions include colocation hosting, dedicated server hosting and networking services. Learn more about data center locations by visiting our brand new website: http://www.datacentermapping.com