6 Advantages of a Colocation Data Center
By: Amanda Garland
Tags: It, Data Center, Business, Technology, Services

Servers perform many key functions including secure storage of data, processing business transactions, and more, making them a vital resource in the day to day operations of your business. When it comes to housing and maintaining this critical equipment, you have two main choices: build/rent a facility to house and maintain them yourself or explore utilizing the resources a colocation facility provides.

A colocation facility is not simply a space to stick your servers, many of these companies can offer you additional benefits and other IT services that can help your business run smoothly and continue to grow.

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A Purpose-Built Design/Setup

Colocation facilities are well set up to handle the needs of servers. These facilities offer a secure climate-controlled environment with an infrastructure designed to support the sever demands of multiple businesses on a 24/7 basis. This often includes custom rack/cabinet configurations, advanced cooling systems, and backup generators (or other alternative power sources).

Many colocation data centers also offer a carrier-neutral environment, giving you the option of choosing your network provider or providers. Having many providers serve one facility means access to higher bandwidth speeds and can provide you extra peace of mind; if one network falls, there are others to pick up the slack, thus limiting potential downtime for your essential business operations.

Advanced Security

Keeping your servers safe and secure is critical and colocation data centers offer some of the most up to date security features. On the physical security side, many facilities offer cameras, in-house security professionals, biometric scanners, access codes, enhanced alarm systems, and more. These security features allow you to set who can access your equipment, ideal if you employ your own IT professionals that need access to upgrade servers, switch out equipment, etc. Most facilities will be able to accommodate your individual security requests; whatever it takes to make you feel that your servers are secure.

On the cybersecurity side of the equation, colocation facilities offer varying degrees of intrusion protection services with the use of firewalls, intrusion protection systems (IPS), and cloud-based backup of your databases. These measures can help protect you against malware, spyware, viruses, trojans, and more.

24/7 Expert Staff

In addition to employing their own in-house security professionals, colocation facilities also provide in-house IT experts. These professionals are on hand 24/7, 365 performing installation, diagnostic, and repair services to ensure your system, and all of their other clients’ systems, stay up and running. If your server goes down at 2 am on Christmas, an IT professional will be available to troubleshoot the problem.

Having access to these IT professionals is often part of your negotiated service package and can provide you significant cost savings over hiring your own IT personnel.

Growth Opportunity

As your business grows, so do your IT needs. Most colocation facilities are built, and space is rented out in a way that there is always more space available than their clients’ current needs. This is to ensure that as you grow, additional space is always available to you. The 24/7 availability of IT professionals also offers scalability. If you need more temporary or permanent IT staff, there are multiple professionals already available.

The opposite is true as well. If your needs scale down on either the hardware storage or IT maintenance side, a colocation facility can accommodate this, as they can always use the extra space and staff for new clients and the growth of other existing clients.

Customizable Service

Companies that operate colocation facilities can offer multiple, customizable levels of services. You can opt for a hands-off approach where the facility and staff take care of all your server and other IT needs, or if you already employ IT staff you can opt for a more hands-on solution that may include just a simple rental of server space. The important takeaway is that you are in control, you choose the level of involvement and services that are ideal for your situation.

Measurable Savings

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Using a colocation facility can offer you a great deal of monetary savings over building/renting and maintaining your own facility. The facility is already built, the infrastructure is up to date, and because a colocation data center offers space to multiple tenants, you are not the sole company carrying the financial burden.

When it comes to the launching and growing of your business another important cost to consider is time spent; time = money. The IT-related time-costs you have when working with a colocation data center is mostly limited to server installation and data migration. This is a key factor when you are launching or expanding your business, as it can allow you to be up and running in a matter of hours or days instead of the weeks or months it might take you if you handle it all yourself.

Another important time-cost aspect to consider is downtime. With the 24/7 availability of expert professionals and multiple network providers, a colocation facility can dramatically decrease the frequency and duration of costly downtime your company experiences.

Final Thoughts

Your servers are the backbone of your business, without them, you can’t serve your customers properly. If you are in the position of needing a new IT or server-housing solution, either because you are launching a new business or your business has expanded beyond what your current space can accommodate, you have a choice to make: build your own facility or partner with a data center offering colocation services. Knowing the benefits and services that a colocation facility offers, maybe it is time to ask if colocation is right for you?