Since the last decade, the internet has seen a massive growth where it became an important part in the business industry.
Businesses of any kind, whether they are large or small, have to think about the traffic and number of visits their website will be receiving, understanding the best ways to host the service and how to manage them effectively and efficiently. One of the best solution for this is colocation.
Colocation is often used as a mean of an off-site data storage, served usually in a data center. This is very important for any types of businesses since the loss of data can impair companies of any size. An unexpected loss in data can result from human errors to natural disasters.
The data center includes equipment space and bandwidth that are available for clients to rent. Colocation facilities also provude power, storage, networking equipments, cooling, and physical securities for the servers. These will enable the clients' businesses to be connected with a variety of telecommunications and network service providers with a minimum cost and complexity.
The choice to have colocation for business data is when a business does not own its own server. Many colocation companies have their services available to rent.
The Advantages
Colocation has become a popular option for companies with midsize IT needs, and almost all internet related businesses.
Using colocation can be advantageous in a number of ways. The cost for colocation is lower than it would be for a company or individual to host their own website. Many colocation centers have better protection against power cuts and have backups in place that many small businesses may not have. Additionally, colocation can have higher security than regular hosting as the servers are kept in secure environments with the firewalls and added protections against unauthorized access. The servers can also be kept in locked cabinets for added security.
The Disadvantages
While having your server located away from your offices can be beneficial in terms of power outages and security. But for some businesses, not having their servers in-house can give them difficulties. This is especially true if a company needs to make quick changes to its server or if a company needs to access it outside of the data center’s opening hours.
Colocation providers that are located close to your office can be difficult to find, especially if you are not close to a large city. However, it is not necessary to have the colocation center close to you since the provider can manage the server for you. Colocation companies may offer unmanaged and managed colocation where you pay more to have your servers managed. Unmanaged colocation is a more flexible option for you if your company have staffs with technical knowledge to maintain and upgrade the servers themselves.
Conclusion
It is useful for any small businesses that want a large web presence but do not have the space and the staff for a dedicated server. Putting your server in a managed colocation center can save time and effort.
Colocation is also a recommended choice for companies that want a higher level of security and protection that they would not get with regular web hosting. Colocation is particularly popular with e-commerce companies as a secure and reliable store for their transactions, major companies for securing sensitive data, and with telecommunications companies for exchanging traffic with partner sites.