Colocation server providers offer data center infrastructure that businesses can use to house their own IT equipment. Businesses can use colocation facilities as their main IT bases or just as backup locations to ensure business continuity. Both uses are popular in New York.
Colocation server providers essentially provide data center infrastructure as a service. In other words, the colocation server provider takes care of managing the data center infrastructure. The client just has to take care of their own equipment. As is standard in the as-a-service area, colocation can be used on either a long-term or short-term basis.
Here is a quick overview of the three main areas managed by colocation server providers.
Having a colocation server provider take care of security and compliance measures at the infrastructure level is often a huge benefit for businesses. It means that colocation server vendors essentially take on the bulk of the work involved in ensuring security and compliance.
For example, it’s the colocation server provider who has to implement physical security measures to protect the facility. Likewise, it’s the colocation server provider who has to implement robust network security. Possibly most importantly of all, it’s the colocation server provider who has to manage the staff required to oversee and maintain these defenses.
Another benefit of using a colocation server provider is that they implement highly advanced power and cooling systems. These deliver the optimum level of power or cooling for the minimum level of electricity. This means they help to keep running costs to a minimum.
Colocation facilities tend to be strategically located near major network hubs. They also tend to be supported by multiple network vendors. This is particularly likely in an area such as New York. As a result, they tend to offer reliable high-speed, low-latency connectivity.
Many colocation server providers also offer colocation managed services. The exact service range depends on the provider. In general, however, it’s comparable to other forms of managed IT services. It just tends to be specific to equipment hosted in the colocation facility.
Almost all businesses rely on digital data, applications, and/or services to some extent. Many businesses depend on them to maintain their operations. This means that downtime often has serious (and expensive) consequences. Here are five of them.
To avoid these issues (and others), businesses need to implement robust business continuity strategies.
Using colocation in itself can be a business continuity strategy. Most colocation server providers offer robust, contractually enforceable uptime guaranteed. The industry standard is currently 99.999%. Some colocation server providers will even offer a 100% uptime guarantee.
Colocation server providers can offer these guarantees with confidence because they implement facilities with high levels of resilience. There are three main ways this resilience is achieved. These are:
The design of the building: Colocation facilities are typically designed with security in mind. This minimizes the risk of security incidents causing disruptions.
The use of redundancy: Reputable colocation server providers implement redundancy in everything, including security measures.
Robust security and compliance measures: Colocation server providers take measures to protect against both physical and digital hazards, including environmental hazards.
It’s also common for business continuity measures to be combined with other goals. For example, a business might contract with a collocation server provider to offer the best possible service to its customers in New York. At the same time, however, its colocation facility in New York could act as a backup to a data center in another area such as Washington DC.
Security measures: New York is not prone to extreme weather conditions. It is, however, a densely-populated city so human hazards such as crime and civil unrest are a consideration. Also, all colocation facilities need robust network security.
Network performance and reliability: This is crucial for both standard operating locations and business continuity locations.
Scalability options: Even if you’re only using a colocation facility for business continuity, you may want (or need) to be able to scale it in line with your workload.
Support and service level agreements (SLAs): In the real world, it’s inevitable that there are going to be issues from time to time. It’s therefore important to know what help you can expect from your colocation server provider and in what timescale.
Cost: When looking at costs, it can be helpful to separate implementation costs from operational costs. Both have to be considered as part of the total cost of ownership but they have different impacts on a business’ cash flow.
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