Colocation

When your company is in the market for a web hosting solution, there are many options available.

Colocation is popular among businesses seeking benefits of a larger internal IT department without incurring the costs of a managed service provider.

What is Colocation Hosting?

Colocation hosting is a type of service a data center offers, in which it leases space and provides housing for servers. The clients own the servers and claim full authority over the hardware and software. However, the storage facility is responsible for maintaining a secure server environment.

Colocation services are not the same as cloud services. Colocation clients own hardware and lease space, with cloud services they do not have their hardware but lease it from the provider.

Colocation hosting should not be confused with managed (dedicated) services, as the second implies the data center also assumes management and maintenance control over the servers. With colocation hosting, the clients are the one who is responsible for supplying, maintaining, and managing their servers.

How does Server Colocation Hosting Work?

Maintaining and managing servers begins by ensuring the environment allows them to work at full capacity. However, this is the main problem businesses with “server closets” deal with. If companies are incapable of taking on such responsibilities on-premises, they will search for a data center that offers colocation services.

Colocation as a service works for businesses who already own hardware and software, but are unable to provide the conditions to store them. The clients, therefore, lease space from their service providers who offer housing for hardware, as well as environmental management.

Clients move their hardware to a data center, set up, and configure their servers. There is no physical contact between the provider and the clients’ hardware unless they specifically request additional assistance known as remote hands.

While the hardware is hosted, the data center assumes all responsibility for environmental management, such as cooling, a reliable power supply, on-premises security, and protection against natural disasters.

What is Provided by the Colocation Host?

The hosting company’s responsibilities typically include:

Security

The hosting company secures and authorizes access to the physical location. The security measures include installing equipment such as cameras, biometric locks, and identification for any personnel on site. Clients are responsible for securing their servers against cyber-attacks. The provider ensures no one without authorization can come close to the hardware.

Power

The data center is responsible for electricity and any other utilities required by the servers. This also includes energy backups, such as generators, in case of a power outage. Getting and using power efficiently is an essential component. Data centers can provide a power supply infrastructure that guarantees the highest uptime.

Cooling

Servers and network equipment generate a considerable amount of heat. Hosts provide advanced redundant cooling systems, so servers run optimally. Proper cooling can prevent damage and extends the life of your hardware.

Storage

A datacenter leases physical space for your servers. You can decide to store your hardware in any of the three options:

• Stand-alone cabinets: Each cabinet can house several servers in racks. Providers usually lease entire cabinets, and some may even offer partial cabinets.
• Cages: A cage is a separated, locked area in which server cabinets are stored. Cages physically isolate access to the equipment inside and can be built to house as many cabinets as the customer may need.
• Suites: These are secure, fully enclosed rooms in the colocation data center.

Disaster Recovery

The host needs to have a disaster recovery plan. It starts by building a data center away from disaster-prone areas. Also, this means reinforcing the site against disruption. For example, a host uses a backup generator in case of a power outage, or they might contract with two or more internet providers if one goes down.

Compliance

Healthcare facilities, financial services, and other businesses that deal with sensitive, confidential information need to adhere to specific compliance rules. They need unique configuration and infrastructure that are in line with official regulations.

Clients can manage setting up compliant servers. However, the environment in which they y are housed also needs to be compliant. Providing such settings is challenging and expensive. For this reason, customers turn to data centers. For example, a company that stores patients’ medical records requires a HIPAA compliant hosting provider.

Benefits of Colocation Hosting

Colocation hosting is an excellent solution for companies with existing servers. However, some clients are a better fit for colocation than others.

Reduced Costs

One of the main advantages of colocation hosting is reduced power and network costs. Building a high-end server environment is expensive and challenging. A colocation provider allows you to reap the benefits of such a facility without investing in all the equipment. Clients colocate servers to a secure, first-class infrastructure without spending money on creating one.

Additionally, colocation services allow customers to organize their finances with a predictable hosting bill. Reduced costs and consistent expenses contribute to stabilizing businesses and frees capital for other IT investments.

Expert Support

By moving servers to a data center, clients ensure full-time expert support. Colocation hosting providers specialize in the day-to-day operation of the facility, relieving your IT department from these duties. With power, cooling, security, and network hardware handled, your business can focus on hardware and software maintenance.

Scalability and Room to Grow

Colocation hosting also has the advantage of providing flexible resources that clients can scale according to their needs without having to make recurring capital investments. Allowing customers to expand to support their market growth is an essential feature if you want to develop into a successful, profitable business.

Availability 24/7/365

Customers turn to colo hosting because it assures their data is always available to them and their users. What they seek is consistent uptime, which is the time when the server is operational. Providers have emergency services and infrastructure redundancy that contribute to better uptime, as well as a service level agreement. The contract assures that if things are not working as required, customers are protected.

Although the servers may be physically inaccessible, clients have full control over them. Remote customers access and work on their hardware vie management software or with the assistance of remote hands. Using the remote hands service applies to delegate in-house technicians from the data center to assist in management and maintenance tasks. With their help, clients can avoid frequent journeys to the facility.

Clearly defined service level agreements (SLAs)

A colo service provider will have clear service level agreements. An SLA is an essential asset that you need to agree upon with your provider to identify which audits, processes, reporting, and resolution response times and definitions are included with the service. Trusted providers have flexible SLAs and are open to negotiating specific terms and conditions.

Additional Considerations of Colocating Your Hosting

Limited Physical Access

Clients who need frequent physical access to servers need to take into account the obligations that come with moving servers to an off-site location. Customers are allowed access to the facility if they live nearby or are willing to travel. Therefore, if they need frequent physical access, they should find a provider located nearby or near an airport.

Clients may consider a host in a region different from their home office. It is essential to consider travel fees as a factor.

Managing and Maintaining

Clients who need a managed server environment may not meet their needs just with colocation hosting. A colocation host only manages the data center. Any server configuration or maintenance is the client’s responsibility. If you need more hands-on service, consider managed services in addition to colocation. However, bear in mind that managed services come with additional costs.

High Cost for Small Businesses

Small businesses may not be big enough to benefit from colocation. Most hosts have a minimum amount of space clients need to lease. Therefore, a small business running one or two machines could spend more on hosting than they can save. Hardware-as-a-Service, virtual servers, or even outsourced IT might be a better solution for small businesses.

Is a Colocation Hosting Provider a Good Fit?

Colocation is an excellent solution for medium to large businesses without an existing server environment.

Leveraging the shared bandwidth of the colocation provider gives your business the capacity it needs without the costs of on-premises hosting. Colocation helps enterprises reduce the costs of power, bandwidth, and improve uptime through redundant infrastructure and security. With server colocation hosting, the client cooperates with the data center.

Now you can make the best choice for your business’s web hosting needs.

There are many instances when having your business tied to a specific vendor is preferable.

Data centers that are tied to a specific carrier may seem attractive at first. But, the long-term implications can be less-than-ideal. There are several reasons to maintain your operations in a carrier-neutral data center, also referred to as a carrier hotel.

Carrier neutrality is an essential factor in choosing the right colocation provider.

1. Cost-Efficiency of Carrier Neutral Data Centers

Colocation data center providers provide a high level of control and scalability while reducing the need to re-engineer your applications for the cloud.

Adding carrier neutrality to this list expands your opportunities for cost savings. When there are multiple carriers represented in a single data facility, you can forge contracts with your top choice and have a backup negotiating point in your pocket as well. 

The long-term nature of many data center colocation contracts means that it is essential to negotiate favorable terms and a way out if the carrier does not live up to expectations. 

2. Reduced Risk of Data Loss

Protecting your data from catastrophic loss is one of the critical arguments for utilizing data center colocation.

Finding a solution that offers a carrier-neutral environment may provide even greater protection from business-critical data loss. The business cost of downtime goes far beyond direct expenses.

It extends to indirect costs such as loss of future sales from customers, poor terms with vendors on future contracts due to inability to fulfill obligations, etc.

Direct costs from a data loss can run into the tens of thousands of dollars quite quickly. Reducing the risk of data loss one of the more important critical issues around data colocation. A single outage is too much. 

When you are in a facility that offers several carriers, you are that much more likely to find one that offers provides the service levels and guaranteed uptime that meets or exceeds your business requirements. 

3. Improved Scalability Options

The flexibility to make quick changes in your facilities management strategy is a benefit for anyone using colocation facilities.

Working with a data center that offers a variety of service providers adds to that scalability as well. Today’s data-intensive services and processes require immediate access to information regardless of the time of day or night. These demands can shift dramatically based on customer demands and the flow of business, too. If your current carrier is not providing you with the scalability you need — either up or down — then a carrier-neutral facility allows you to select another service provider who better meets your business’s changing needs. 

Adding new business lines or a new database structure would require significant infrastructure planning in the past. It can be as simple to roll out as clicking a few buttons on an interface or making a phone call to your colocation center in today’s world. This improved scalability and flexibility of data access can be a substantial competitive advantage in a fast-changing marketplace. 

4. Local and Regional Redundancy

If something ever happened to your facility or your data carrier’s access to your facility, what would happen? Would your data immediately be lost for a period of time? Or, would you easily be able to swap to a different carrier? 

With neutrality, your data stays safe and secure within the carrier hotel. It can also be rapidly transported via other carriers in the event of a catastrophic loss or failure. This is not a likely event. However, it does provide customers with the options needed to protect their significant investment in data and virtual infrastructure.

Having access to your data only a portion of the time is not an acceptable situation. Instead, you need to know that you can always maintain a clear path into and out of your data facility with your chosen carrier. 

5. Overall Flexibility With A Carrier Neutral Data Center

Changing carriers in the event of an emergency is much more efficient when you have multiple options available. The flexibility of utilizing different carriers based on their physical distribution network is also a bonus.

You have options when it comes to everything from billing cycles and Service level agreements to acceptable use policies (AUPs). Additionally, neutral data centers are generally owned by third-parties instead of by a specific carrier which provides for greater resilience and access to data. 

Working with a carrier neutral data center provides a variety of benefits to your organization. With reduced costs due to greater competition for improved redundancy and flexibility, these colocation providers are the best bet for a safe storage place for your business-critical information. 

Finding the right data center can be one of the best investments your organization ever makes.

Take the time to make the right choice for your business’ unique needs, and the returns will be immediate.

You’ll find this easy to do once you appreciate what a colocation data center is and which services matter for your company.

What Is Colocation?

Colocation is a popular alternative to traditional hosting.

With a traditional hosting setup, the service provider owns just about every component required to support your applications. This includes the software, hardware, and any other necessary elements of the infrastructure.

Conversely, colocation server hosting offers its clients with the physical structure these companies need for their hosting solutions.

The name “colocation” refers to the fact that many companies’ servers are “co-located” in the same building.

This is also referred to as a “multitenant” solution.

Each client is responsible for providing dedicated servers, routers, and any other hardware. Often, the colocation server provider will take a “hands-off” approach. This means the client’s employees need to physically travel to the data center if server maintenance or repairs are required.

This isn’t always the case, though. As we’ll cover in more detail below, many data centers offer many managed services. 

What Is a Colocation Data Center?

A colocation data center is the facility that houses servers and other hardware on behalf of their clients. Inside data centers, racks of servers store data for the company’s clients.

One way to better comprehend onsite hosting and data centers is as two different types of homes.

Onsite hosting is like a house. You own everything to do with that property, and you’re responsible for its “operation” and maintenance costs.

A colocation facility is more like an apartment. You still have to pay certain fees. You still need to pay for most of what goes into an apartment, too. However, the owner is responsible for maintaining the property itself. This includes the physical structure that protects your investment.

Both have their advantages. Data center facilities are growing in popularity in the United States and Worldwide.

Some of the reasons for this are:

• Lower operating costs – For the vast majority of companies, it makes much more financial sense to outsource hosting. The costs of maintaining everything from servers to the power feeds just aren’t realistic. The same goes for the budget it would take for the space required. Then there’s the overhead related to security. Besides, not only do service providers keep these costs down, they usually do a better job, too. When you consider the decreased chance of downtime, savings go up even more.
• The need for fewer IT staff members – Another cost you’ll need to consider with onsite hosting is the need for a large IT team. After all, if anything happens to your servers, your company will be in big trouble. Most data centers have experts on staff who can be leveraged during an emergency. Many also have managed services, so you can hire the daily IT help you need at a fraction of the cost.
• Unparalleled Reliability – Again, downtime is expensive. Companies that rely solely on onsite hosting are vulnerable to any number of events. Anything from an earthquake to a busted water main could take them offline. Data centers are designed with disaster recovery in mind. Most have multiple data center locations, including outside of the United States, too, ensuring redundancy.
• Predictable Costs – As long as you read the fine print (more on this below), colocation providers will make forecasting easy. You know precisely what you must spend every month to keep your company online – no surprises.
• Ease of Scalability – Colocation services are incredibly scalable. Pay for what you need, and don’t bother with what you don’t. As the related costs are predictable, it’s easy to decide how much scaling your company can afford to do, too. Once you’ve completed the data center migration process, scalability is relatively easy. This gives your company the ability to scale up or down as necessary whenever you want.

9 Tips For Picking the Best Colocation Data Center

Now, you’ve got a better comprehension of what colocation solutions are and why they’re so popular – you must be excited to choose one.

Before you do, though, be sure to read through the following tips to ensure best results.

1. Be Clear About Your Company’s Unique Goals

No two companies are the same.

Therefore, even when two companies want the same thing – like colocation services – they may still have different needs.

That’s why it’s important to go over your company’s goals and objectives before considering colocation server hosting.

Otherwise, it will be all too easy to spend more than you need to, including on services you’ll never even use. You may also neglect specific requirements, only to realize your mistake after you’ve signed a contract and gone through migration.

If your company has been hosting onsite up to this point, this shouldn’t be too difficult to do. Look at what’s working and plan to scale up if necessary. Then, look at what services you need, and find colocation providers that can offer them.

If your company is brand new, this will be a little more difficult. Consider hiring a consultant or speaking to those at various data center facilities to realize what you need.

Either way, you may also need a facility that offers managed services. That would allow you to outsource many essential tasks to the experts at these facilities. 

2. Ensure Data Center Infrastructure Supports Your Assets

On the other hand, there’s one advantage to building your infrastructure from scratch. You will most likely be more open to the technology you’ll use. In turn, this means you can consider more colocation facilities.

For those of you who are set on certain types of hardware and software, you must keep this in mind. Presumably, you chose both because it supports your organization’s goals and objectives. Therefore, some data centers won’t be options.

You must also confirm that a facility can support your power-density needs. Many companies need upwards of 10 kW for each of their cabinets. Older ones may not be able to meet these requirements. Others will, yet doing so will come at an increased cost.

Choosing a data center that can’t provide customer support to necessary assets would be a costly mistake. When you speak to a provider, list what your needs are upfront. There’s no point in proceeding if a data center facility can’t meet this essential requirement.

3. Remember: Location, Location, Location

Many data centers with more than one location provide disaster recovery as a service.

However, you most likely want one of those locations to be nearby your business. This is wise even if you plan on using the colocation facility as a secondary site. That way, your IT staff will be able to access it with ease.

Unless you plan on outsourcing all of your needs with managed services, this is essential.

4. Don’t Take the Advantages for Granted

While the benefits as mentioned earlier are extremely advantageous, not every data center may offer them to the same degree.

For example, many data centers allow themselves a certain number of outages every year. Before going beyond that point, they’re within their contract even if your company suffers as a result.

There are ways around that problem. A simplified example would be a business continuity plan that involves another colocation provider outside of the United States. That way, if a disaster causes an outage here, your other colocation service should be safe.

Still, take the time to go through the data center colocation agreement fine print. If you have questions about anything, put them in writing and make sure you document the answers the same way.

5. Go Through the Colocation Costs Carefully

Similarly, you’ll only benefit from predictable costs if you go through them with a fine-tooth comb. For example, you may need to pay an initial fee to set up your data center space. Another may do the same, only amortize the cost over a certain number of months.

This can make comparisons between colocation facilities misleading if you’re not careful.

For most companies, the best way to look at costs is to project how much your need for hardware will grow in the coming years. The hardware you utilize will dictate the power, space, and connectivity you need, too.

All of these factors affect the price you’ll pay.

Consider any colocation services you may eventually need the same way. These will also affect your budget going forward.

Concerns about your colocation costs and pricing should be part of your search criteria. You don’t want to choose a colo data center facility only to find out they won’t adjust their contracts. 

6. Find Out What Your Migration Timeline Will Be

Although this may not necessarily amount to a deal-breaker, you should ask about how long migration will take. That’s because one factor tends to catch companies off guard.

As soon as migration begins, most colocation providers can meet extremely tight deadlines. This includes for putting your service cabinets in place, energizing your power strips, and equipping your team with security clearances.

Usually, all of this can be achieved within a month – possibly sooner depending on your needs.

However, the activation of a carrier circuit can easily take much longer. Your timeline extends to at least 90 days before connectivity is achieved. Unfortunately, until you have carrier connectivity, your migration cannot be completed, and your organization will be without its servers.

Again, if you can plan for the timeline involved, you don’t need to disqualify datacenters with longer ones. 

One way to do this is to have a provider guarantee a migration date in your contract. If they’re helping, have them define each step of the migration process, too, with a date for each. No matter what, you need them to do this for security clearance, over which they have complete control.

7. Look for Facilities with Carrier Neutrality

Many colocation centers are corporation-owned. This usually means they have a limited offering when it comes to network carriers that offer colocation services.

Give priority to carrier-neutral data center facilities. They can offer you a much larger variety of carriers and options for connectivity, and this will mean competitive pricing. You will also be able to leverage the design of a redundant vendor network.

8. Don’t Assume More Floor Space Is Better

There’s nothing wrong with a data center that has an impressive amount of floor space.

Just know that, in and of itself, that trait isn’t incredibly important. It shouldn’t be seen as much of an advantage on its own.

Preferably, you want to fit as much equipment as possible in as little space as you can. By doing so, you’ll enjoy much better operating costs.

9. Make Sure Your Investment Will Be Safe

We’ve already mentioned the importance of picking a colocation facility that will meet your organizations disaster-recovery needs. Otherwise, your company could be without its servers for a prolonged period of time. That would be a highly expensive problem.

You need to consider the security of a data center for the same reason. As a multi-tenant facility, people from other companies will have access to it, as well.

That’s why you want to choose a location with multiple levels of physical security. These should exist both inside and outside the building. If you deem it necessary, you can also ask about adding cameras to your data center space for extra security.

Taking Your Time Choosing a Data Center Colocation Provider

Choosing a data center is one of the most important decisions you’ll make for the future of your business. So, while you may be anxious to begin leveraging its benefits, don’t rush.

Review the nine tips outlined above and consider as many options as possible.

Only after you have found the perfect choice should you proceed. Then, it’s just a matter of time before the perfect data center helps your company reach new heights.