7 key differences between data center and server co-location

When do you need a dedicated data center and when do you need co-location? You must be trying to find out which system is going to work best for you. To ease out the confusion, presented here are seven key differences between having a co-location service and a dedicated data center.

Colocation

1. The difference between owning and renting: In a colocation center, you own the equipment and in a dedicated data center you take the server equipment on rent from a service provider. In both the systems, you will have to get in touch with a server service provider and have a consultation to determine what kinds of server facilities are on offer.
2. Responsibility: Ultimately it is an issue of responsibility. When you own the equipments, it is primarily your responsibility. When you rent the server space, you outsource the responsibility of maintenance to the server maintenance professionals.
3. Affordability: The expenditure varies in both the systems. In a data center colocation you are paying only for the server space and server accommodation facilities (like temperature control, humidity control, fire suppression etc.) In dedicated datacenter solutions, you are paying for the server accommodation as well as for the management of the server systems. You are not paying for server maintenance on a collocation server; you have your in-house team for that. However, even for co-location, you will need some extent of server maintenance. So, while deciding between data center co-location and dedicated server, you will have to see the extent of maintenance that is required and provided in each scenario. Both have their advantages and disadvantages and it depends upon your needs and requirements which one will be the best for you.
4. Manageability: The manageability of the equipment is a major issue of difference. At a collocation server, you have to manage the systems yourself, while in a dedicated server, the maintenance is carried on by the dedicated staff of the server service provider. If you think, you can manage well by yourself, only then you should opt for data center colocation. Otherwise dedicated servers are better options.
5.  Security: Security is a contentious issue while deciding between the types of hosting. Some network administrators are of the view that it is more secured to take care of the server system in a co-location server, while some prefer to leave the matter to a good dedicated datacenter solutions.
6. Speed: Like security, speed discussions are also contentious. You have to ultimately decide on the type of server hosting that can provide you with maximum speed. While dedicated data centers have a fixed bandwidth, in co-location servers, you are the master of your own speed.
7. Redundancy: For server redundancy management, you need to have experienced professionals who can tell you when a particular component needs replacement. For dedicated data centers, it depends on the professionals who maintain your services, but in a colocation center, you need to perform regular checkups with your in house team to decide on replacement of any component. 

What is Data Collocation?

Collocation is a combination of data center services that helps to facilitate server, storage and network interconnection to various network service providers and tele-communicators. Many other services are combined by this full feature hosting solution which is perfect to be used for cloud hosting that uses multiple servers. This type of a connection provides unlimited bandwidth through various careers and very rarely needs maintenance. 

Colocation Services in India

These services are provided with ease and at affordable rates. Normally internet exchange points will provide these services, which are very beneficial to businesses around the globe. It is one of the best possible choices for storing your web server hardware. It reduces all kinds of risk, ensuring that your website will stay online as often as possible and that too at high speed.

Economical Solution

By using data collocation infrastructure, you will use collocation to pick the server. The software and the data center collocation will maintain the connection and deal with the environmental and physical aspect of the server such as storage facility and air-conditioning. You will find yourself safe and secured knowing that your data is best protected in a secured data center.

The content providers or service providers will be able to experience less latency that will enable them to focus on their main business, but at the same time they will be able to own the server and use the same in other ways, as they need to. This helps organization to minimize their traffic back-haul cost while freezing up the internet networks and use them in other ways.

Corruption of data eliminated

When you are outsourcing your network traffic to data collocation service providers who have more bandwidth then the speed of website access will increase considerably and be less prone to going down or crashing.  With this service you can choose the hardware configuration of your own server. Normally e-commerce and web companies use this service as a cost effective and save connection to the internet.

Large enterprises using data center collocation prevent disasters; they back up data and provide a failsafe. Tele communication companies use it to inter-exchange traffic with other companies and to gain access to possible clients. By spending a little money on these services, you will reduce many of your connections and communication cost and will always be in continuous contacts with your customers.

Search for a Good Service Provider

A hosting provider will provide you the best services for a reasonable price. The cost will be such that you will be able to meet the same by using such services. The long term cost will be economical for you. For this very reason don’t try to grab offers just because they are cheap.  Do some research and compare the amenities that the server host provider, provides you with the price that he charges.  

If you go to host a server yourself it will cost you a lot. By hiring services from a host provider, you will be saving your bandwidth charges up to a great extent. You will only be paying a minimum rental fee and earn benefits of a popular website.

Benefits of going for Server Colocation

Colocation Server

Co-location is basically defined as hosting of web servers in someone else’s facility. The companies that offer this service basically offer its customers with a safe and a sound facility, so that they can physically place their web servers in them.

There are numerous benefits for businesses, if they go for colocation services, here are some of them:

• Cost-effective: Colocation of servers is considered as one of the most economical methods of hosting web servers. The user does not have to spend any money on management and maintenance of web servers.
• Consistency: It is considered much more reliable to host your web servers in a co-location facility, than in your own in-house facility. As these companies have their own dedicated technicians for server management.
• Safety: These facilities are known to be much more secure, as the companies that offer this service takes care of all the security concerns of its customers.
• Support: A colocation service provider usually hires its own dedicated staff to offer 24/7 support to its customers.

Server colocation has increasingly become one of the most sought after hosting solutions today, as it not only allows a business to reduce its hosting cost, but also helps them to dedicatedly focus on their core businesses.