A colocation, sometimes referred to as colo, is a type of data center facility. Businesses can rent out space for their servers and other kinds of computing hardware. In most cases, the colocation will provide the building, any kind of cooling, bandwidth, power, and physical security while the business renting the space provides their own servers and storage. Typically, the space in a colo is rented by cabinet, cage, room, or rack.
There are quite a few situations where a business will choose to store their computing hardware in a colocation instead of in their own building. One of the main reasons is that the costs included with keeping a large computing facility is simply not worth it for a single business to do on its own. For this reason, cloud service providers especially like to use colocations. While distance may be an issue for some businesses, the pros of using a colocation’s services tend to far outweigh the cons.
Why Do People Use Colocation?
The reasons of finding out if a colocation is right for your business are nearly limitless, which makes it difficult to turn out a simple questionnaire. However, there are a few things you need to think about to know if you should seek out a colocation’s services.
- Do you need custom hardware with a lot of bandwidth potential? Using colocation, you can use the hardware and software your business needs.
- Do you need to be able to build server clusters, redundant hardware, load balancing, etc.? Again, there is a lot more flexibility with colocation. You can use as many servers, custom devices, and even make your own mini-network. If your equipment can handle it, you can do it.
- Do you want to be in control? If you want to have the say-so about your project, you need a colocation to give you the wheel so you can truly take control.
- Do you need to be able to host servers that most managed hosting providers do not allow? As long as it’s legal, you shouldn’t have a problem hosting content or services.
- Do you need a dedicated carrier service for your servers? A colocation provider will be able to fit your needs if this is important to you.
- Do you want to have a lot more flexibility with expensive limits? Regular types of managed hosting tend to have a ton of limitations, but colocation doesn’t. You don’t have to limit your number of domains, the kinds of services and content you use, or other types of costly excesses!
References:
- Providers, By Most Managed Hosting. “Why Choose Colocation?” About Colocation. N.p., n.d.
- Rouse, Margaret. “What Is Colocation (colo)? – Definition from WhatIs.com.” SearchSOA. N.p., n.d.