What is colocation hosting?

Co-location refers to the approach of renting space in third party data centers for servers and other IT equipment. This includes every facility such as networking, physical security, power and cooling. Given the extreme pace at which most businesses operate today, co-location is always a suitable option, as it gives companies the ability to rent power, cooling and other IT equipment with lower TCO and greater efficiencies.

Some of the biggest benefits of colocation hosting include:

• Scalability: When companies run out of space in their data centers for their workloads, then a co-location service provider is one of the best options. It also gives companies the flexibility to scale up or scale down IT infrastructure, depending on the demand. If demand increases, the number of racks can be increased along with power and cooling requirements. Similarly, if demand comes down, then the racks can be scaled down appropriately

• Redundancy: Most colocation service providers have multiple options for ensuring redundancy. From Internet connections, network services, telecom operators to cloud platforms, colocation hosting service providers provide enterprises with the required stability, in case of an outage or downtime with one service provider

• Improved uptime: Colocation service providers use the best tools and frameworks to provide an efficient IT infrastructure that delivers the best performance. As infrastructure is shared across multiple clients, it leads to a lower cost of ownership with better quality and availability. Additionally, companies get access to some of the most advanced IT infrastructure at faster deployment cycles and lower costs.

Colocation service providers in India also maintain a high level of security, which includes biometric access, 24/7 surveillance and security guards.

How colocation differs from web hosting

One can think of colocation as renting space in an office. You pay for all the infrastructure developed, but you can have your own infrastructure inside the office. As you can have your own infrastructure, you have the responsibility of maintaining the infrastructure and configuring it to the needs of the business. This includes installation of software, carrying out updates and monitoring the hardware hosted at the colocation service provider. Compared to this aspect, a web hosting service provider does not give enterprises the full control of their IT equipment. The only control available is administrative control. With colocation, enterprises can decide and choose the software they want to install. In the case of web hosting, it is the responsibility of the service provider to install the software.

Web hosting service providers have dedicated servers and are responsible for maintaining the performance of the website. This is especially suited for companies who do not have the technological capability. It is also advisable for small and startup companies that do not have the initial CAPEX to purchase their own server. Web hosting plans are far more cost effective than colocation

While web hosting plans are cheaper than colocation, it has several limitations. As the infrastructure for web hosting is typically shared between thousands of users, a website is typically placed on the same server as other websites. From the list of sites that are hosted, even if one website receives massive traffic or interest, then it can cause a huge impact on other listed websites on that server. Issues can also be caused due to low bandwidth, which may also cause slow loading of websites. Compared to this approach, a colocation service India has a dedicated server related configuration setup which ensures good performance of all hosted websites, with more bandwidth available than a shared web hosting setup. While web hosting is cost effective, companies have to share server space with other users. In the case of colocation, users are responsible for updates and maintenance related activities.

In conclusion, depending on the business, they can make a decision to go in for a web hosting or colocation option, by taking a look at some of the factors cited above.

Tags: colocation service India, colocation solutions, colocation web hosting, data centers

Source -