What is Colocation
What is Colocation? A question that we are often asked, well Colocation, sometimes referred to as Colo, is a great way for businesses to protect their data, by hosting their server in a secure UK data centre location.
Colocation for your business
You may ask, what would be the benefit to my business of colocation within a data centre when I can host my server on prem?
Well simply put, colocation removes the maintenance dependency of the server environment on-prem.
The environment required to support optimum health of your physical kit can be fully maintained by the Data Centre, removing any responsibility on yourself or your employees.
When it comes to colocation and the maintenance of your server’s environment you can be assured the following criteria will be controlled:
Security: When it comes to the security aspect, this isn’t something that is taken lightly, security is at the forefront of Data Centre operations, from the security surrounding the perimeter with fencing and electric gate access, to entry requirements and photo ID all angles are covered.
This is prior to security in terms of your actual server, which are always locked within your rack, accessed through a bespoke cage, with additional security measures available if required, furthermore before your server can be accessed there is a pre-booking prerequisite, without that you will not only not be able to access your server, but you will also be denied entry into the data centre, because security is of the upmost importance.
Network: By choosing colocation it doesn’t mean that you must change network providers, you will be able to cover your network into the data centre.
This you may think would be an extremely costly element, however the reality is that it’s an easy process and it comes with minimal expenses.
In addition, we can discuss with you what bandwidth, resiliency, and diversity that you require, as it is important to express to you that all can be seen as an affordable solution when you are contemplating colocation.
Space: Servers require space, space that in-house you can potentially better utilise in other ways, which is another added benefit to colocation, depending on the number of units that you require, as you would expect this does play a part in determining the cost of colocation, which is something that we can discuss with you, however we have options ranging from a quarter of rack space all the way up to bespoke private cages.
Power: Power is something that is extremely important and is undoubtedly one of the questions that you will be thinking about, you want to be assured that there will be no problems, how does an 100% Service Level Agreement for power uptime sound to you?
Cooling: As important as power is cooling, again with the data centre a 100% SLA for cooling uptime is offered with an innovative adiabatic cooling system, because cooling is of upmost importance to the health of servers.
Another reason to consider colocation is that the complete maintenance of your kit can be fully controlled for you, if you don’t want to have any responsibility for the overseeing and the upkeep of your kit this can be taken care of for you, likewise if you would like the responsibility to be managed by yourself this is an available alternative.
In a nutshell, colocation is becoming increasingly popular with organisations of all sizes, particularly a fully managed solution because the reality of on-premises is that it is time consuming, stressful and can be extremely costly, particularly in the instance that disaster was to occur.
To discuss colocation or any of our Cloud Solutions further please don’t hesitate to contact Data Installation & Supplies on 01274 869 099 or info@disnorth.com and one of our friendly and knowledgeable team members will look forward to discussing your individual colocation requirements with you.