A Brief Introduction To Colocation

A Brief Introduction to Colocation

by

Tony Heywood

Colocation is a technical term referring to the location of a web server or other telecommunications equipment within a data centre built for the purpose of housing high tech electronic equipment. The equipment is co-located with other servers hence the name colocation or co-location.

Usually the equipment a web server that is housed in a collocation centre is located in a secured cage or rack, with a regulated power supply, it\’s own dedicated internet connection, security software and managed support. The advantage of a collocation centre is that the equipment is housed in a purpose built facility with the correct atmospheric controls, electrical supplies and solid high speed internet connections. A good co-location centre will have high level security measure and be much better protected against theft, fire and vandalism then a server hosted within a companies normal office. From a top level provider of collocation you would expect there to be security cameras, fire alarm and detection equipment coupled with extinguishing and sprinkler systems. They should also have back up power supplies, power surge protection and a variety of internet connections. The idea being that during a power failure or the loss of an internet connection a server housed in a collocation centre would carry on working with little or no down time. They offer a level of security and the ability to stay connected and keeps your server working that a server housed with an office of work space would not offer.

Colocation centres are also sometime called carrier hotel or \”colo\’s\”. Colocation is increasing in popularity due to the time and money a company can save buy sharing the large scale costs of providing the best environment for servers and other telecommunications equipment. Economies of scale come into play it cheaper to have your equipment, core IT and communications facilities in safe, secure hands in purpose built location then build run and staff a colocation facility yourself.

Another reason that companies are switching to collocation is the ability of a collocation provider to supply much improved bandwidth whilst the relocation of the equipment frees up space on a companies internal network resulting in it working much more efficiently.

Data back up is another reason to use colocation facilities as a good colocation service provides expert back up resources for your critical data and web pages. Losing your data can be critical to the survival of a business. The lose of data can result in your business closing down, sixty percent of companies that lose their data will shut down within 6 months of the disaster. So the back up data services offered by a co-location provider are vitally important and well worth the investment.

Colocation also provides a solution if the software you run cannot be placed on shared or managed servers, if you are using a collocation centre then you have control of the server and the software that is placed on it. It gives you more options then using managed servers as the equipment is yours to customise to your own requirements.

The colocation market seems to be set for growth although there has been a dip in the demand but the requirements still outstrip the current level of supply. The knock on effect of this is that collocation prices are set to rise during 2011.

Tony Heywood

I am a small business owner who has been looking at a variety of different services including

interoute.com/enterprise/infrastructure/colocation

and

interoute.com/enterprise

Article Source:

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