Colocation Advantages for Businesses

For most businesses, except very large firms, Colocation can benefit a business by offering lower costs and higher performance than having the network in-house. Companies without the financial resources and office space to build a dedicated Data Center are better off sharing a Data Center with other companies.

The following are seven benefits for a business to Colocate their server:

1. Robust Power Supply - Using a Colocation Data Center provides a power redundancy on a level that is extremely expensive to replicate in-house. The premium Data Centers provide full surge and lightning protection, double or triple battery backup, and diesel power generation for extended outages. They offer vast expertise and equipment than your construction firm alone could afford on the task of keeping your servers running at all times. If your business chooses to have the server in-house instead of Colocating, you run the risk of losing data and suffering prolonged downtime through summer blackouts, winter ice storms, and other electrical calamities.

2. Physical Security - Even with all the password protection and software firewalls you install, nothing will stop an industrial spy or a disgruntled employee from breaking into your server closet and walking out with an armful of hard disks. The most common way for someone to steal your company's sensitive data is by reading it directly off the disks. While you could invest in heavy-duty physical barriers, around-the-clock video surveillance with tape backup, and armed guards, the best way to safeguard your data is to use a Colocation Data Center.

3. Cheaper Network Bandwidth - By Colocating, your cost for a T1, DS3 or OCx Circuit is much lower per Mbps than it would be in-house. The savings is substantial enough that for the price of an in-house T1 line, a competitive Colo center will sell you bandwidth equivalent to a DS3 line, which offers an order of magnitude greater bandwidth. Or, for the price of leasing your own DS3 line, you can go optical at a colo center.

4. Bandwidth Burst Capability - It's widely known that 99.9% of the time you are using only 10% of your bandwidth. But if your server is in-house it's not practical to cut costs by reducing leased bandwidth to just that 10%. The reason is 0.1% of the time your bandwidth demand can spike to ten times it's usual value, which then results in your business processes failing and customers turning away. To handle these spikes with an in-house server you end up paying each month for ten times the capacity you need. But by leasing bandwidth from a colo center, you are only paying for the 10% you really need. Colocation Data Centers have huge data pipes, so when a bandwidth spike occurs, capacity is there when you need it. Bandwidth costs are reduced because data spikes are distributed over time among the many different users of the facility. This makes long-term data usage much more predictable than for a business with an in-house server.

5. Reduced Network Latency - Reliable Colo Centers put their network directly on an Internet backbone, resulting in data packets moving through fewer routers as they make their way between your business and the rest of the Internet. Therefore, latency is reduced, providing much faster bandwidth speeds.

6. Physical Expandability - Businesses utilizing a Colocation Data Center do not experience any server downtime or time spent preparing for a live service transition. When a business needs to upgrade the amount of bandwidth needed, a better business solution is to rent space in a Colo Center. It's possible to increase your server capacity by two, five or even ten times its current size without the headache of downtime or physically moving machines around. The cost for upgrading bandwidth is also divided among the many other users.

7. Environmental Stability - A Colocation Data Center can protect your data and keep your hardware running during times of flooding, earthquakes, fire and even humidity and air pollution. This is accomplished because Colo Centers are located on high ground in a geologically stable part of the country. As for the cost of this protection, a business shares the cost of these measures with other users of the Data Center. It's much more cost-effective to share the cost with hundreds of other data-centre users than for your business to absorb the cost entirely because your server is in-house. Therefore, Colocation is the way to go.

This article isn't an all-encompassing discussion of the advantages of using a Colocation Data Center, but merely a "scratching of the surface" look at what to think about when deciding which service is right for you business' voice and data network.

Generally speaking, any business looking into what network technology makes the most business sense for their employees, business suites, and conference activities needs to do their homework and not jump without a thorough analysis. For help with that assessment, I strongly suggest taking advantage of the no cost research and support available through USaveTelecom.com.