A Colocation data center is mostly referred to as a “colo” is any large datacenter facility that rents out rack space to third parties for their servers or other network equipment. This is a service that’s used by businesses that do not have the required resources to maintain their data center by themselves.
What is a Colocation?
The term colocation refers to aspects of this data center. It means servers and other equipment from several different companies are co-located in one data center. The hardware is usually owned by companies themselves and simply maintained by data center staff.
A company can have their equipment located in several locations. It is crucial for businesses to have footprints across different locations to make sure their computer systems are hosted near their physical offices.
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Advantages of Colocation Data Center
Physical Security
Data centers are designed to secure your systems from multiple threats that could hamper performance and security of your data and systems. They implement effective high-end data center security measures such as fire suppression systems and video surveillance.
Performance
Computer systems function best in climate controlled, dust free settings. The cooling and air filtering systems that professional data centers offer are advanced which contributes to best performance.
Reliability
Colocation facilities offer reliable power, cooling systems and communication that enables reliable connections. Companies can invest in tools and workflows that are essential to improve comparable systems internally.
Risk Management
Natural disasters and data breaches could occur, if important equipment is stored in an off-site data center. There are other protection measures and backups in place to keep everything running smoothly.
Flexible Upgrade
Businesses can increase their bandwidth without the need of additional investments. Besides this, they can adjust how much bandwidth is required based on the type of applications deployed.
Types of Colocation Data Center
The 3 types of data centers in a colocation facility are hybrid cloud, wholesale, retail and based co-locations.
Hybrid Colocation
Hybrid colocation consists of establishing a combination of multiple in-house data center space where businesses can rent from another data center.
Retail Colocation
Retail colocation enables you to lease a space inside the data center, usually a rack, a small space inside the rack or a custom room.
Wholesale Colocation
Wholesale Colocation allows businesses to rent data center space at a lower rate. Due to this power and the space used by the data center to run equipment, is lower than retail colocation.
Considerations When Selecting a Colocation Data Center
Top considerations to keep in mind when selecting a colocation data center:
- Cost: Most often it is very expensive to establish and maintain an in-house data center. Whereas, colocation can provide businesses the resources required to support computing equipment at an affordable rate.
- Scalability: When businesses are looking to scale up, colocation lets you rent space for additional servers and other components. It allows space for in-house expansion and is economically viable.
- Compliance: Colocation makes it easier to achieve regional data management requirements. If the business requires legislative regulations to maintain an off premise storage facility, colocation is an ideal option to meet regulatory compliance.
- Performance: Look for colocation data centers that can store the business components and can offer a service level agreement that guarantees sufficient power and internet service.
- Redundancy: Using a colocation service to store backup systems can help set up a reliable redundant infrastructure. It is ideal when a business’s in-house components go offline.
Conclusion
Colocation enables access to improved services and ecosystems. It helps businesses to switch to exchange service contracts seamlessly by leveraging carrier neutrality, cloud-enabled services. Besides this, it also offers multiple cloud service access through secured networks, helps in collaborating with partners on the same premises, and interconnects fabrics to other services. It also helps you stay ahead with fast evolving efficiency and sustainability best practices.
FAQs
Disadvantages of Colocation
- Does not have security such as network monitoring and visibility tools. Businesses may have to depend on whatever managed services the data center offers.
- Challenging to create redundant computing systems that run on workloads in parallel between two or more colocation solutions.
- Colocation lowers your resiliency if a primary computing process, such as payment processing for an e-commerce site goes down.
What is the difference between cloud and colocation data centers?
In the cloud, servers are owned by the cloud provider and data is virtually managed. In colocation, servers are owned by the business that is renting the space.
How does colocation work?
Colocation works when businesses store their IT hardware, servers, and data storage equipment in a space rented by a third-party data center provider.
What is colocation capacity?
Data center colocation is when a business leases space within a shared data center, with options like leasing cabinet, rack space or even an entire room. Usually, the agreement includes physical security and a certain amount of power availability and guaranteed internet connectivity.
