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A Simple Guide To Colocation In Seattle
A Simple Guide To Colocation In Seattle

A Simple Guide To Colocation In Seattle

  • Updated on January 13, 2024
  • /
  • 5 min read

Colocation offers businesses a low-cost, flexible way to operate private data centers. It is particularly useful in areas with high real-estate costs such as Seattle. In general, colocation works in much the same way regardless of the location. That said, different areas often have different characteristics that have a minor influence on colocation. With that in mind, here is a simple guide to colocation in Seattle.

An overview of the Seattle business landscape

Seattle is known as a hub of all tech-related industries. These include aerospace and aviation, biotechnology, and ecommerce. It is also a hub for the transportation and logistics industries, largely thanks to the Port of Seattle.

The city is famous as the home of global enterprises such as Amazon but it also has a thriving startup ecosystem. Seattle fosters innovation through numerous tech incubators and accelerators, providing support to startups and entrepreneurs. Similarly, it hosts prominent research and development centers that support cutting-edge work in fields such as artificial intelligence, machine learning, and biotechnology.

There is often very close collaboration between academia and industry. Seattle’s many academic institutions also help to create a pool of highly-skilled talent, especially tech talent, that boosts the city’s position as a global tech hub.

The benefits of colocation in Seattle

For most companies, the main benefit of using colocation in Seattle is that it gives them a straightforward way to establish a presence in a strategic location. Hosting data and/or services near users in Seattle makes it easier to serve customers quickly. This is highly significant when dealing with the sort of businesses that operate in Seattle.

Additionally, if you need to store and/or process data that customers view as sensitive, it can be very reassuring for them to know that you are holding it locally. Firstly, this minimizes the distance it needs to travel. Secondly, it means that it will be held under the supervision of local regulators. Some customers may even make this a condition of doing business with them.

Other benefits include:

Scalability with customizability: Customers can adjust their use of colocation in Seattle in line with their business needs, wants, priorities, and budget. At the same time, businesses can also customize their infrastructure with much more freedom than they can in the public cloud.

Long-term cost-effectiveness: Using colocation in Seattle enables businesses to unlock the long-term cost-savings of processing data in-house. The fact that it eliminates the need for significant capital expenditure means that those savings can be realized more quickly.

Predictable costs: The costs of using colocation in Seattle can generally be predicted much more easily than the cost of using the public cloud. This makes budgeting easier and hence gives businesses a much more accurate idea of their cash-flow situation.

Convenience: Running an in-house data center is a major undertaking. It’s also likely to be a non-core activity. For this reason, many businesses prefer to hand over this responsibility to a third-party vendor. Using colocation in Seattle is a convenient way of doing this.

Factors influencing the cost of colocation in Seattle

There are 7 key factors that influence the cost of colocation in Seattle. These are:

  • Location and physical space requirements
  • Tier level (level of resilience).
  • Security and compliance
  • Network connectivity options
  • Power requirements and energy efficiency
  • On-site support and SLAs
  • Contract length and flexibility

Of these, location is almost always the most significant. It also tends to influence several of the other factors, including and especially tier, security, and network connectivity.

Overall, tier level and general security are unlikely to be huge concerns when implementing colocation in Seattle. The city is very safe and has a very benign climate. While it is notorious for rain, this tends to come as continual drizzle rather than occasional downpours. Likewise, storms are relatively frequent but also relatively mild. As a result, events such as floods are extremely rare.

Security generally forms the basis for compliance. Essentially, the purpose of compliance programs is to show that you can maintain a sufficient level of security to protect data. In Seattle, you can expect most colocation vendors to support mainstream compliance programs (e.g. PCI/DSS). Vendors that support more niche programs (e.g. StateRAMP) may charge a price premium for this.

Network connectivity, by contrast, is likely to be a major concern. The best network connections tend to be in facilities located near major network hubs. Real estate prices in these areas tend to reflect the quality of the network connection. This then feeds into the cost of using colocation in Seattle.

Colocation Seattle

If you are looking for colocation services in Seattle, DataBank is an excellent choice. DataBank has two state-of-the-art data centers in the Seattle area, which combine to offer 14,240 square feet of raised floor space, and 1.2MW critical IT load. Learn more about DataBank’s Seattle data centers.

Related Resources

A Simple Guide To Colocation In Seattle
A Simple Guide To Colocation In San Diego
A Simple Guide To Colocation In Salt Lake City
A Simple Guide To Colocation In Pittsburgh
A Simple Guide To Colocation In Phoenix
A Simple Guide To Colocation In New York City

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