Advantages and Disadvantages of Colocation Hosting Servers
While launching a new website/Application you might face the question - which service should you opt for deploying servers. One choice you are likely to skim through is colocation server hosting. Colocation services have been undermined for long. People have had a misconception that such services are neither worth the money nor enough robust for the experience they are looking for. A closer look into colocation intimates that it can be as much useful as any expensive hosting service. Take a look at this wholesome knowledgebase.
What is Colocation Server Hosting?
In colocation, instead of renting a server, the client rents a rack space and then procures a server of his own. The idea behind colocation is to make data center as accessible as possible. Since provisioning data centers involve hefty sums, it is practically enviable for some businesses. The cost of operating a data center in some cases can be more than a business's revenue. The maintenance itself involves a big deal of investment.
So, when a client co-locates server, he moves some essential hardware to a nearby or any convenient data center. The provider then connects all switches, sets up network and gets the server running. The vendor may or may not be responsible for maintenance.
How is Colocation Billed?
Colocation bills are bifurcated into fixed and variable components and vary from provider to provider and also in accordance to Service License Agreements. The fixed cost involves the rent of the rack space and is charged the same amount in every cycle. The variable component(s) vary as per usage and involves components like network usage, bandwidth, power, etc.
Advantages of Colocation Hosting Servers
- The top advantages of using server colocation service are that it ensures high availability while lowering capital cost that enterprises have to spend on acquiring features like bandwidth, rack space, cooling and firewalls. Security of data is another huge advantage that companies can enjoy by using colocation services.
- Second, it ensures more control over the server. The vendor only controls the physical aspect that you could do better without. This ensures that clients can customize all facets of the service, thus assuring more freedom than traditional hosting.
- It spares the organization the trouble of maintaining server infra and reduces complexity of the business. Reduced workforce means the organization can be better managed and efficiently run.
- Lastly, colocation allows you to expand your infrastructure without stressing too much on capital expenditure. Technically, the need for expanding infra grows every year and can as much as double in every five years.
- There are numerous other benefits of data center colocation such as reduced workload, high uptime and cloud migration as well. The above four points are enough comprehensive and cover all these aspects in some way.
Who Needs Colocation Servers?
Large and growing companies will find it more cost-effective to build their own data centers instead of co-locating their servers. Internet bandwidth needed by users in the organization will increase as they will be accessing the applications from the co-location service providers over the Internet. The cost would increase as they will have to also pay for the cost of data transfer incurred by the servers.
It is the small-scale companies that colocation benefits the most. Constructing data centers can be both time and capital consuming. In a few years into operation, a newer technology may advent, making the data center obsolete. Thus, running a data center involves technical, financial and workforce challenges that can simply be avoided by opting for colocation service instead.
Disadvantages of Colocation Hosting Servers
It can be sometimes hard to find a colocation provider near your corporate, especially when operating in remote areas. Though co-locating to a distant data center is always an option, it will create as much problems as it will solve. Travelling back and forth to such colocation sites can limit the time spent in office doing productive work. Though better than hosting in several aspects, colocation can cost more than managed hosting services in some cases.
Organizations that have not the expertise required to maintain servers will always find it more useful to engage in managed hosting.
Difference between Dedicated Hosting and Colocation Hosting
Colocation is a hosting model where you place your servers and other hardware in the rented rack slot of a third-party data center. Whereas, in dedicated server hosting, you rent or lease access to a server already present in a data center.
Each of these hosting models are highly sought-after by organizations looking for an upgrade from a shared server or a VPS.
In colocation hosting, you assume complete responsibility for managing the server while the colocation hosting provider supplies the power, cooling, and internet connectivity. A lot of businesses take their existing servers and install them into a colocation facility. This way, they get the advantage of high-speed internet connection, power redundancy, and a host of other amenities offered by the facility, without requiring to migrate their existing application to a new server.
The biggest benefit of using a colocation facility is that you dictate the hardware choices in that you can set up the servers exactly the way you want. In addition, you can have the location of choice.
The downside is that you are responsible for everything starting from buying the server, installing software (if required), setting up the server, and maintaining it. So, if something goes wrong with the server, you need to identify the issue and rectify it. So, long story short, when you choose colocation hosting, the buck stops with you.
In a dedicated server framework, you get access to all the resources of a bare metal server that’s already placed in a data center. Needless to say, in this model, you get not only the hardware but also the power, cooling, and connectivity to keep the latter up and running.
Dedicated server hosting is a great option for those seeking unmatched speed and performance for their website/application. The apparent advantage of this kind of hosting is that you don’t need to buy hardware or rent additional space, etc. to run this hardware.
Plus, you don’t need to employ additional staff to manage the hardware. The drawback is that you have less control over the choice of hardware and software when compared to colocation.
