Colocation services are still a perplexing topic for many SMBs (small to medium-sized businesses). A number of misconceptions about colocation services can cloud the decision-making process. The best cybersecurity software can ensure the total safety of your data from any outside threats.
What is a Data Center?
A data center is an IT hardware infrastructure for your servers. Data centers are required to be maintained at an optimum temperature for performance purposes, require copious amounts of power supply along with means of backup power supply, uninterrupted internet connection, and can cause sound disruptions due to activity. Maintaining a data center with the above specifications will only be manageable for some businesses. This is where colocation services come into play.
Commercial data centers are meant to make data center technology accessible to more businesses. They are affordable options for small businesses to store data while not having to make the expensive investments in purchasing the IT infrastructure. IaaS (Infrastructure as a Service) services are booming as a result. Let’s explore what colocation services are first.
What are Colocation Services?
Colocation services involve hosting your data center in a commercial data center infrastructure. These services can be subscribed as per need and can be upgraded or downgraded depending on server demand. Colocation services are an affordable option for businesses without on-premise server rooms.
Subscribing colocation services mitigate many of the risks of maintaining a small business's data center. Dedicating space to store and use the infrastructure for a data center can be a hefty investment for most businesses. This way, your business will not have to worry about the risk of fire, flood, or theft since the colocation services provider will take care of it.
As more people get to know more about colocation services, the myths surrounding colocation services are growing as well. Here are some of those colocation services myths and the truth behind them.
1. Colocation Is Managed Web Hosting By Another Name
This is not true. In a Web-hosting arrangement, your site's HTML code resides on another business's server. In a colocation services arrangement, your company's equipment and software are physically located in another business's data center. Instead of sharing a server with multiple websites (often thousands of them), your company's site has its own server and supporting gear. Your enterprise's Web site does not compete with many others for server resources and bandwidth, and glitches in other companies' websites do not affect your business's site.
2. Colocation Services Are More Expensive.
Colocation services indeed costs more than cloud-based hosting. But compared to the cost of building a data center, colocation services are a bargain.
The costs of staffing and high-speed Internet connectivity are other reasons to choose colocation. In a colocation facility, all tenants share these costs.
3. Colocation Services Are Inconvenient
Your IT staff can handle most equipment maintenance and configuration chores remotely. While it helps to have the IT staff and the equipment located relatively close to each other, staff members can always travel to the colocation site to upgrade equipment or software.
But for most day-to-day operations, a remote colocation services facility is no more inconvenient than having your company's servers in the next room. Colocation facilities may provide more space and better equipment organization than that broom closet converted into a server room with a better IT security management strategy.
4. Colocation Services are Less Secure Than In-House Hosting
Colocated equipment is kept separate from other tenants' gear by locked and monitored cages. The colocation facility's firewall, IDS (Intrusion Detection System), and physical security will likely be better than most SMBs can afford.
The colocation facility's staff keeps security patches up-to-date, a chore that should be addressed in in-house IT operations. Generally, your business's IT assets are safer in a colocation facility than in its office. 24/7 surveillance and on-site security with multifactor authentication make colocation services as secure as they get. All servers will have dedicated firewalls to ensure data safety making colocation services an affordable yet secure choice to store your data.
5. Colocation Services Are Less Reliable
Most colocation facilities have redundant Internet connections and power supplies. They often run at less than 80 percent of capacity, so competition for bandwidth is fine. A colocation center's staff members — who should be on-site 24/7 — are trained to react instantly to outages.
Opting for colocation services is a reliable option for small businesses that cannot reliably maintain their own servers on a limited budget. Colocation services take away all the stress of having to maintain the optimum conditions for your servers.
6. Colocation Services Are Less Flexible Than Owning Equipment
All you rent in a colocation services facility is space and connectivity — the servers and the software belong to your company. This gives your business control over what software runs on its servers and how powerful they can be. In a managed web hosting arrangement, the speed of the servers and the available software are limited to what the host provides.
Colocation services providers provide the power, network, and cooling requirements no matter the circumstances and this became prudent during the pandemic. Businesses that had opted for colocation services were able to continue to operate with remote access despite social restrictions. This proves the flexibility small businesses can gain from not having to worry about maintaining data center equipment.
7. Colocation Services Do Not Provide Support
Actually, colocation services provide a great deal of support to tenants, including physical security, network security, disaster recovery, cooling, and power. Managed colocation services contracts are available to keep your company's servers fine-tuned and even to upgrade hardware or software.
With individual server firewalls, colocation services are able to secure individual servers and ensure that any failures in a neighboring server don’t affect others. These types of risk mitigation are an excellent selling factors for colocation services.
The degree of support your business can obtain from colocation services is limited only by the willingness to pay.
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