Businesses, especially big corporations, typically host their own servers. Having these locally in the premises gives them easy access to be able to maintain and update data centers and networks. However, not all businesses are required to house their own servers. This is where colocation services come in.
What are Colocation Services?
Colocation services like Datasite Orlando are third party services for housing servers. A colocation data center is basically a building that is equipped with the necessary equipment (e.g., servers, cooling, redundant power, etc.) for data storage and analysis.
Compared to a dedicated server room inside a building of a business, a colocation data center can be thought of as a specific building that caters to multiple businesses. These businesses are the ones that would rather have their data stored in a colocation data center instead of developing their own server room.
Being able to rent space in a colocation data center, many advantages are conferred. Equipment is usually provided by the businesses themselves because specific equipment would be needed for specific operations. However, the colocation data center may or may not be able to provide basic equipment that clients can use. These can include things as simple as racks, cabinets, and cable trays.
Disadvantages to Having Your Own Server Room
While having your own server room has its advantages, there are certainly disadvantages as well. For one, a server room takes a lot of work to create. Aside from the cooling required to keep the equipment inside running smoothly, a server room would also require ample amount of networking, security, and its own redundant power supply in the event of a power outage.
Making the use of a colocation data center saves a business the trouble with setting up their own data center. This route is especially ideal for budding businesses or businesses that do not rely on data centers enough to justify having their own.
Speaking of power, power maintenance and redundant power supplies are especially important in the upkeep and maintenance of such data centers. These are highly important as equipment used for these operations are usually very expensive and without the proper power maintenance (i.e., surge protection, voltage regulators, etc.), the equipment becomes vulnerable to problems.
Furthermore, redundant power supplies are especially important because these batteries or generators allow the data center to remain operational even when the main electric grid is down. Different facilities can have different degrees of redundancies in their power systems. Aside from these redundant power systems powering up the data centers, these redundant power systems would also be responsible for powering up the cooling system, security system, and all that.
An important aspect of keeping and operating equipment for data centers is cooling. As a rule, technology works best when it is properly cooled, especially equipment that deals with data. This is because operational technology already produces waste in the form of heat and proper cooling helps ventilate and alleviate the heat. Proper cooling allows equipment to run as intended.
Another advantage of a colocation data center is security. Having a building or space that is especially designed to house such equipment and operations, a colocation data center is usually appropriately secured. This means that these data centers are equipped with an appropriate number of CCTVs, fire detection, suppression systems, and so on. Furthermore, while the equipment for a specific business can be provided by the business themselves, a colocation data center also has its own staff to maintain and protect the space.
Bandwidth, or the rate of a network connection, is another advantage that a colocation data center can have over a local data center that a business can put up themselves. A specialized colocation data center can have greater bandwidth, which is highly beneficial for a data center to have. Comparatively, businesses cannot ensure having the ebay bandwidth for themselves – especially those that did not have a data center in mind from the beginning. A colocation space with great bandwidth makes the decision to use them easier since faster bandwidth would make it easy to access information from the servers as well (if a cloud storage system is being used in conjunction).
Lastly, utilizing a colocation data center provides a business with some sort of scalability in terms of their data center. In a scenario where a company builds their own server room, scalability will be definitely a problem. However, using a colocation data center means that you can keep on expanding as soon as you need more space because it just becomes a matter of renting more space.
Colocation vs Cloud
A colocation service is a type of data storage service that requires physical hardware. However, this becomes a debate whether this option is the right one compared to cloud storage – a type of data storage that mainly takes place in the public internet. While the two seem like two sides of the same coin, there are distinct differences between the two and how they are used that can help a person decide which is better for them.
On one hand, it cannot be denied that cloud storage is incredibly convenient. It is a type of storage format that can be accessed pretty much anywhere as long as the place has internet connection. On the other hand, colocation data centers are physical places that require people to go to and from.
One system people can opt for is to have storage done in the cloud, while leaving analysis and computing power to the data centers. This option makes the most out of the two options since, the convenience of cloud storage makes it an ideal storage format, while utilizing a physical data center for computing power makes use of its available threads and cores for analysis.
Conclusion
Overall, a colocation service is essentially a specialized third-party location that can house data centers for businesses. These are data centers that businesses can rent space in for their own equipment, inside spaces that are already optimized for such equipment.