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When selecting the best colocation provider, it is important to consider many factors that will directly impact the efficiency and reliability of your IT infrastructure. Managing the servers and networking equipment that powers your business can be a challenge that affects every aspect of your ability to conduct daily operations.
Furthermore, most organizations simply don’t have the resources to have their own data centers. Therefore, maintaining this digital infrastructure on-site requires constant expertise and expenses, with plenty of risks along the way.
So, let’s learn more about the essential criteria for choosing the best colocation provider to ensure your data remains secure, accessible, and optimally managed.
Table of Contents
What is Colocation? Understanding the Basics
What Type of Space is Available at a Colocation Data Center?
What is the Difference Between a Data Center and Colocation?
Colocation vs Cloud Services – What Are the Differences?
How to Choose the Best Colocation Services
Discover Why DartPoints is the Best Colocation Provider
The Growing Demand for Colocation Services
Housing your digital infrastructure within a colocation data center has many benefits. It’s cost-effective and reliable, and it gives your organization the freedom and elbow room to grow or to scale your colocation services up or down as needed.
However, the most critical aspect of using a colocation data center is identifying and partnering with the best colocation providers available. According to recent research from Goldman Sachs, the rise of artificial intelligence is expected to drive a 160% increase in data center power demand.
Additionally, combined with the rising cybersecurity threats and natural disasters, having a colocation provider who is ahead of these challenges and can ensure the constant reliability of colocation services is crucial.
What is colocation? Understanding The Basics
A colocation data center, also known simply as a colo center, is a facility where multiple businesses and organizations can rent space to house their networking equipment, servers, and other computing hardware.
These colocation data center tenants essentially share the cost of power, cooling, bandwidth, and security. However, they also have access to state-of-the-art facilities that minimize – or virtually eliminate – potential cybersecurity risks, physical security risks, and downtime.
Essentially, the colocation data center tenant provides the equipment (or leases it from the colocation provider). Alternatively, the colocation data center ensures that all requirements when it comes to power, bandwidth, cooling, compliance, and security are met and optimally exceeded.
The data center/colocation model gives organizations access to the best facilities possible, reducing the cost and expansive time required to maintain their IT infrastructure.
What type of space is available at a colocation data center?
The best colocation providers offer multiple options for the type of space that tenants can access and utilize within the data center.
Generally speaking, colocation data centers offer private data center suites, cabinets, cages, or rack space. In addition, the cost generally fluctuates depending on how much data center space the client needs. (For example, private suites are usually more expensive than rack space.)
Keep in mind that the top colocation providers ensure that you can adjust your data center space as needed throughout your tenancy.
For example, as your business grows, you may need to move your equipment to private suites instead of rack, cabinet, or cage spaces. Therefore, your colocation provider should offer your organization options to do just that.
The importance of colocation in modern business
In our modern business environment, there is an ever-growing reliance on networking and IT infrastructure. Colocation services ensure business continuity by providing reliable and redundant systems required to function, including power and cooling. Additionally, they provide diverse connectivity options and security measures like biometric scanners and firewalls.
This means organizations across all industries have more security and peace of mind when avoiding disasters, emergencies, attacks, and downtime. Moreover, a data breach or system failure in one organization can spiderweb and affect several businesses in a community or even globally. Therefore, it is important to have reliable connectivity to ensure there are no gaps in the supply chain.
What is the difference between a data center and colocation?
Data centers and colocation signify two very different concepts.
A data center is a physical facility that houses servers and equipment. On the other hand, colocation refers to the service where organizations or tenants rent space from these facilities to house their own equipment. Simply put, a data center is a location, while colocation is a service that uses this space.
What are the differences between having your own data center and using colocation services?
Responsibility and cost are the key differences between having your own data center and utilizing colocation services.
With a dedicated data center, you own your equipment, but you also own and maintain the entire data center site. This is why privately owned data centers are generally utilized by some of the largest cooperation and companies in the world, like Google or Microsoft.
An overview of the key points of distinction between a private data center and colocation services include the following:
Management and ownership
The data center owner is responsible for the facility and all costs and operations involved, which includes physical security, power, cooling systems, data protection, and all mission critical components.
Cost
Owning a data center involves a substantial upfront investment but requires continual costs to maintain the networking infrastructure. This includes energy bills, personnel to provide physical security, and all expenses correlating with data center facilities.
Control
The bright side of owning your data center is that your organization has maximum control of how the data center is managed and operated, while with colocation, you have less control over the overall infrastructure, though you still manage your own server and other digital infrastructure that powers your business.
Maintenance and reliability
The data center owner is responsible for all maintenance and reliability initiatives, including hardware repairs, power management, and environmental controls.
When to choose a dedicated data center
You will likely want your own data center if your organization requires the following factors:
- Needs a very high level of customization and maximum control over the facilities that house your IT infrastructure.
- Needs to manage large amounts of data with highly unique security requirements.
- It has a significant upfront and continual budget that can handle the expenses of owning and operating a data center. Also, it has significant IT resources to provide continual facility management.
When to opt for colocation services
You will likely want to choose colocation services if your organization requires the following factors:
- Wants to avoid higher costs or simply does not have the resources to build, operate, and maintain a data center.
- Needs the flexibility to scale IT infrastructure quickly as your company needs ebb and flow.
- Wants access to the best data center facilities and IT expertise available.
Colocation vs Cloud Services – what are the differences?
When it comes to colocation versus cloud services, the primary differences focus on how data is stored and managed and how companies pay for these services.
In a cloud environment, the cloud provider owns and maintains all the hardware and networking infrastructure that powers your business. In colocation, your organization owns the hardware and simply rents the facilities that ensure this infrastructure is continually operational.
Critical differences between colocation services and cloud services include the following:
- Costs – Cloud services tend to have lower upfront costs simply because the cloud provider owns all the hardware. Colocation tenants must purchase their services and networking infrastructure, but the long-term costs and ongoing fees are generally lower than cloud services.
- Control – Colocation services offer more control over your networking infrastructure, because you own the servers and other hardware. In a cloud environment, you have no control over how the infrastructure is managed.
- Compliance – One of the key factors to examine when choosing between colocation and cloud services is compliance. Not all cloud providers have stringent compliance measures that align with all industry standards, but colocation data centers may have more of these regulatory musts in place.
How to choose the best colocation services
When you start your research on colocation providers, you’ll quickly discover that there are many colocation companies to choose from, and not all colocation companies are created equal.
As such, when choosing colocation services for your organization, ensure the colocation facilities and data center check the following boxes.
Location
Natural disasters can certainly strike in any region of the world. However, smart colocation providers offer multiple data center locations that are strategically placed in safer regions and optimally close to your own business location.
Network Connectivity
The data center provider determines network connectivity, as they determine what inherent infrastructure is installed and how it is managed. For this reason, you want to examine track records for the following:
- Uptime – Most top data center providers can guarantee approximately 99% of uptime, but some distinctive industries, such as finance and healthcare industries, might need 99.99% uptime guarantees or higher, per industry regulations.
- Redundancy – The term redundancy refers to having enough backup systems in place to ensure that this higher uptime threshold is met. Redundancy ensures an uninterrupted power supply, even if there is an issue with fundamental infrastructure, like the main power and cooling systems.
Compliance
Many industries need to adhere to strict compliance guidelines for their networking equipment and infrastructure. Make sure that your colocation services provider meets and exceeds these expectations.
For example, at DartPoints, adherence to exacting compliance standards is a cornerstone of our operations. Our data centers comply with key industry certifications and regulations, including ISO and SOC. Adhering to these certifications and regulations aligns with your business’s compliance requirements and ensures the highest levels of data protection.
Security
A top colocation data center has most (and optimally all) of these security measures in place:
- Firewalls
- Network segmentation
- 24/7 monitoring with advanced technology, including intrusion detection systems and multifactor authentication
- Highly trained personnel
- Backup or redundancy options in case of an emergency
In short, your colocation data center should have multiple initiatives to safeguard the facility, servers, and networking connectivity from physical and digital threats.
Enhanced Cooling and Power Standards
Colling and power are the backbone of a data center’s ability to function. Therefore, with power usage skyrocketing in the data center world, it’s essential that your colocation services provider is ahead of the curve. Look for data center providers that utilize the best technology possible and optimally sustainable technology and power sources to ensure uninterrupted power and network connectivity.
Scalability and Efficiency
Your business needs will grow over time, especially as your company explores new technologies like AI or expands the amount of data you need to access and use on a continual basis. You want to ensure that your colocation services provider can adapt to these changes and offer your business the freedom to grow and expand the space you need over time.
Optimally, if you need to scale down your colocation data needs, the right colocation provider will offer flexibility in this vein as well, so your costs are fluid, along with your needs.
Cost
Cost plays a role in colocation services, and you want to ensure that both short-term and long-term expenses align with your business’ evolving budget. Ensure that your colocation provider reviews all costs up front and answers all your cost or tenant questions before you lease space within a colocation data center.
This is a sign that your colocation data center provider is reliable now and will continue to be reliable miles down the road.
Discover Why DartPoints is the Best Colocation Provider
At DartPoints, we hit all the marks when it comes to reliable, flexible, and time-tested colocation services. We can also give your business continual peace of mind that all your essential IT infrastructure is always safe and secure.
Our colocation data centers are ahead of the curve when it comes to security, sustainable power and cooling systems, redundancy, and meeting compliance standards. In addition, we offer flexible options to align with every type of organization or business.
We know that colocation services should be tailored to the exact needs of the business, which is why we have client-focused support from your first conversation to the years ahead as your business grows and evolves.
Reach out to our colocation services experts today to start the conversation. Find the best colocation services solution for your organization’s distinctive and constantly changing needs.