Colocation in Minneapolis: A Simple Guide to Efficient Operations

Colocation delivers the key benefits of using the public cloud plus the key benefits of running an in-house data center. It has therefore become highly popular with businesses of all sizes. With that in mind, here is a quick guide to colocation in Minneapolis and the benefits it offers.

An overview of the Minneapolis business landscape

Minneapolis is no longer a giant in either lumbar or wheat production and milling. The financial system that developed to support these activities, by contrast, is still active. Finance and professional services are two of the largest business sectors in Minneapolis.

Arguably, the modern replacement for lumbar and wheat is the healthcare industry. Minneapolis is home to both the Mayo Clinic and the University of Minnesota Medical Center. The city also has a strong manufacturing sector and a growing technology sector.

Minneapolis fosters a vibrant startup ecosystem with incubators like Techstars and Lunar Startups. These initiatives provide resources and mentorship to tech entrepreneurs, driving innovation. Promoting startups and entrepreneurship helps to prevent the economy of Minneapolis from being weighed too heavily towards enterprises and established businesses.

The benefits of colocation in Minneapolis

Here is an overview of the five main benefits of colocation in Minneapolis.

Access to a strategic location with low upfront cost

In theory, cyberspace has neither boundaries nor limits. In practice, location can be hugely important to effective service delivery in a digital world. The closer you are to your users, the less distance your data has to travel. This in itself means that response times are quicker. It also means that there is less time for anything to go wrong.

For this reason, many businesses are now aiming to host their data and/or services as close to their customers as possible. For businesses operating in Minnesota, using colocation in Minneapolis is likely to be the most financially attractive way of doing so. It delivers the long-term cost savings of private data centers without the upfront cost.

This is particularly relevant in Minneapolis as it is the most populous city in Minnesota (ahead of the official state capital, St Paul). Its real-estate prices are, therefore, consistently high.

Convenience

Many businesses want to leverage the benefits that in-house data centers offer. Relatively few of them, however, are capable of running in-house data centers effectively. Still, fewer actually want to do so. With colocation, they don’t have to.

More specifically, with colocation in Minneapolis, businesses can leave issues of business continuity and disaster recovery to their vendor. It hence becomes the vendor’s responsibility to deal with Minnesota’s climate, in particular its tendency to flood. It’s also the vendor’s responsibility to ensure that access to their site is maintained even in heavy snow.

Likewise, a lot of the responsibility for supporting compliance programs will fall on the vendor. This may significantly reduce the administrative burden on the customer.

Scalability with customizability

Using colocation in Minneapolis allows businesses to scale their infrastructure in line with demand. Businesses can also connect their own equipment to the public cloud for even greater scalability. For example, the public cloud can be used to handle bursts of activity that exceed its in-house capabilities.

At the same time, businesses also have the option to customize their equipment beyond the level usually supported by cloud service providers. Even if businesses do not foresee any need to do this, it can be reassuring to know that the option is there.

Long-term cost-effectiveness

Over the long term, storing and/or processing data in-house typically works out more cost-effective than using the public cloud. With in-house data centers, however, this advantage is offset by the need for significant upfront investment.

With colocation in Minneapolis, by contrast, businesses really can have it both ways. They can enjoy the cost-savings of processing without the capital expenditure of implementing an in-house data center.

Predictable costs

Using the public cloud on an on-demand basis can make cost management extremely challenging. What’s more, if businesses do not manage that challenge effectively, for any reason, they can end up with painfully high bills.

Using an in-house data center removes that risk but leaves the business very exposed if there is an unpredicted event that generates costs. Insurance may give some level of protection against this but then again, it may not. Even if it does, there may be a significant gap between the payout and the actual cost.

With colocation, businesses pay for the use of infrastructure, not data storage or processing. This means that costs are relatively straightforward to predict (and hence budget for). The financial risk of running the data center, however, lies with the colocation vendor, not the customer.