Colocation, which involves installing your company’s web servers and other networking gear in a secure data center environment, offers many advantages over monitoring and troubleshooting your own networking equipment in-house. Whether offering access to numerous carriers and other content providers, providing 24/7 technical support right at the end of a telephone, or just protecting your actual equipment from theft and tampering, colocation facilities are fast becoming indispensable to businesses who make their living on the World Wide Web.
One of the main reasons to bring your equipment to a colocation facility is to ensure the physical safety of the equipment itself. Although the typical data center can’t do much to protect the data on your server from falling victim to a computer hacker on the other side of the world, they can protect you from somebody who might otherwise just break into your office and remove the server from the rack. Most data centers have multiple levels of security, including locking server racks, caged-off areas, biometic hand scanners, and around-the-clock security staffing all to protect your physical networking assets. With identity theft and other types of “virtual” crime on the rise, one of the safest ways to protect your data is to make sure that the hard drive it lives on is housed in a secure colocation facility.
Nevertheless, locking your gear in a cage won’t do much good if your routers and switches aren’t connected to a reliable power source. All data centers have redundant power feeds and full-time electrical engineers on staff to make sure that your site stays up and running. Most colocation providers will even guarantee something approaching 100% up-time when you are ready to sign your hosting contract.
Colocation facilities also offer access to many different carriers, telco providers and other essential services to always keep your business connected to the web. Specifically, neutral colocation companies may offer a choice of web hosting solutions from major carriers such as AT & T, Global Crossing, and Qwest, which allows customers to find just the right service provider to meet their needs. In addition, having access to multiple companies who can route your internet traffic ensures that one carrier’s service outage does not mean that your business will also go dark until the problem is rectified. Many companies also find it advantageous to partner up and exchange traffic with others located in the same colocation facility. Just a simple cross-connect cable can provide your company a physical connection to the services of another that may actually be located a world away from your own.
Finally, the cost of having a dedicated technical staff at the ready can be very prohibitive to many internet start-ups. Moving your equipment to a colocation facility where a dedicated staff of technicians are always available to reboot or troubleshoot your gear remotely just makes good financial sense. Most data centers run 24 hours a day, 365 days a year, and do not take holidays off. Just the peace of mind that comes from knowing that there is always somebody there to handle any connectivity issues that may arise is often well worth the expense for many companies.
Ultimately, any company that plans to be competitive on the web should consider colocation as an essential tool to ensure their success in an ever more crowded marketplace. Colocation facilities offer an easy solution to partnering and sharing resources with other companies, while still providing top-level physical security for your equipment and the opportunity for unlimited future expansion of your own business as well.