10 points to remember while selecting dedicated leased line services

India is one of the few countries of the world where leased lines are available for business communication. These lines are the latest in business communication technologies and are fast becoming popular. Here are the 10 reasons, why you should be switching over to leased lines for business communications.

Leased Line

1. Exclusivity: Everyone attempts exclusivity. In business communications tool, you can attain exclusivity by the use of the leased line. These symmetric telecommunications systems provide an exclusive connection between two distant geographical locations through a permanent line. The line is exclusive with no other user, unlike conventional telephony that facilitates multiple connections with a single line, by a process called switching. In leased connections, the whole matter is simplified to a single end to end open circuit, thereby promising effective and speedy communication between two nodes.
2. Much less voice jitter: Since lease connections are exclusive ones, therefore there is a significantly less voice jitter in the connection.
3. There is no telephone number in a leased connection: A leased connection does not have a telephone number. You can make direct calls by just picking up the telephone. This makes leased connections highly effective business communication tools.
4. They can be long distance or short distance: The leased connection can be both in the house like in an apartment complex or a hotel connecting two points located in the same city. In either ways, leased connections are highly effective to carry out business or personal communications.
5. Single fixed monthly rent: The cost management option of the leased line is its ultimate benefit. The user only has to pay a single monthly rate for the use of the leased connection, and there is no limit on usage. Use as much as you want, but the final cost remains the same. This feature has made leased connections highly popular among businesses that do not have to calculate extra expenditure beyond a certain limit.
6. Different speed limits: A leased line connection is available at different speed limits. The speed you choose determines the amount of rent you have to pay for using the leased connection. From low speed connections, to medium and high speed connections, leased systems are highly manageable. Low speeds include 64kbit/s, 256kbit/s, 128Kbit/s and 512Kbit/s. Medium speeds include the T1 and the E1 connections at 1.544Mbit/s and 2.048Mbit/s respectively. High speed connections carry the speed of 2, 4, 8 or 16 Mb/s. You can always switch over from one connection to another according to your convenience.
7. High uptime: Leased line connection providers can promise up to 99% uptime guarantee, thus enabling business communications to carry on uninterrupted 24/7/365.
8. VoIP and data transfer: Businesses who want to opt for VoIP connections can also opt for leased connections. Video and voice calls can also be transferred through leased lines.
9. Internet connectivity: High speed broadband connectivity is also possible through a leased connection. For heavy users, this can be of great cost saving opportunity as you have to pay a fixed monthly rate despite heavy usage. 
10. Connectivity: The leased line connections are established either through Wi-Fi, telephone lines ADSL or through OFC.   

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.