Data Center Troubles? Five Reasons to Consider Colocation

When it comes to managing data, IT professionals face challenges of boosting efficiency, keeping energy and operations costs down, increasing business continuity, and optimizing performance. For IT professionals in midsize businesses, or those in larger corporations who are dealing with growing access and application needs, managing an in-house data center increasingly is a burden in need of relief.

What’s the solution?

For more and more organizations, colocation – keeping equipment in a dedicated facility that provides power, heating, cooling, IP and bandwidth – is the key.

Is colocation right for your business? Here are five reasons you should consider it:

1. Security: Colocation centers keep your equipment secure by providing protection from threats such as theft and fires with surveillance, special entrances that require passkeys, around-the-clock guards, and early smoke detection systems.

2. Reliability: Colocation centers have multiple power services and backup and redundancy systems in place to ensure connectivity in the event of a failure. They also provide spaces that are cool, clean and free of dust, thanks to filtration systems that remove particles from the air. These features all aid in the reliability of your equipment.

3. Ease of maintenance: With colocation centers, IT maintenance requirements are greatly reduced, because all you have to keep up with is your hardware and software. The colocation center takes care of the power supplies, routers, switches, cables — and anything else that supports the servers. This smaller maintenance requirement frees up your IT staff to focus on other needs.

4. Speed: Network connections at colocation centers are extremely fast because they are linked directly to the major providers. Colocation centers also have multiple backbones to provide redundancy in case a connection is overloaded or interrupted.

5. Cost: The previous reasons for switching to colocation add up to this final reason, which, for many, is the most important: cost savings. Colocation saves an organization money because it doesn’t have to over spend on power, security, maintenance and connectivity. The costs associated with renting space at a colocation center pale in comparison to the cost of maintaining an in-house data center.

Is your organization facing the challenges associated with maintaining its own data center? Are you looking for a new solution?

Or, have you already made the switch to colocation? What other benefits has colocation provided your organization?

Tags | colocation, colocation benefits, colocation center, data center, data center maintenance, in-house data center, IT maintenance, managing data