Colocation VS Managed Hosting: What Is Right for Your Business?

When deciding upon the correct solution for the hosting needs for your company there a multitude of factors to consider. Most argued are the pros and cons between Colocation and Managed Hosting; both providing varying degrees of management, security and customisation.

Colocation

Many envision Colocation as a hotel for a company’s IT hub. A colocation data centre is often a windowless room with towering rows of racks playing home to servers and technical equipment provided by the client. It is very much a ‘DIY’ environment, with companies managing their own applications, hardware and server configurations via 24-hour access.

The overwhelming facilities provide outsourced space, tier 1 internet connection, guaranteed power, cooling, and security for numbers of firms who rent a portion of space to store their technical hubs. Additional capacity can be scaled up quickly and cheaply as and when needed.

Being integrated into this vast network allows connection of a variety of telecommunications and network service providers, a cost effectively and simplistically as possible.

Colocation is extremely popular amongst smaller businesses with midsize IT needs as it allows staff to focus upon work tasks as opposed to focussing on IT issues that underpin the company’s operating system – saving money by not having an in-house technician on the payroll. However, the company is very much in the driver’s seat of their internet presence, which can be considered a blessing and a curse and the internal competencies of staff would need to be evaluated to be deemed a viable option for your business needs.

With the emphasis of the company being in control of their own web destiny, flexibility is a benefit and hardware and software adopted is completely up to the results desired and any vendor can be chosen. While the initial entry cost for a colocation can be on par with a simple managed plan due to hardware purchases, it is generalised that money can be saved over time with colocation. However, costs will rise if your power/cabinet space or bandwidth usage increases, but the benefit of bulk rates are another cost-effective reason to consider this solution.

The control and flexibility associated with colocation are attractive assets, however, with this comes heightened responsibility. The data centre is essentially an empty catalyst to safely house your needs, and companies will not only need to provide their own equipment, but have a network administrator, system administrator, troubleshooting and repair services available. If a server fails, the colocation provider will simply perform a reboot only on request, anything beyond this is up to the company to resolve.

Managed hosting

In contrast to this is managed hosting. Not dissimilar to buying a car on full warranty with free oil changes and maintenance, managed hosting providers package and offer everything a company could require for their online presence.

Unlike colocation, the managed hosting data centre is completely dedicated to one company and provides maximum usage of hardware, processor speed and bandwidth capacity. Outsourcing the management of an entire IT infrastructure to a trusted provider forgoes the need to hire additional IT support staff – with a specialised team dedicated to the client.

Basic system administration is provided with managed hosting and there is massive choice (based on client’s needs) on server options, from basic to premium. Additionally, clients can choose their preferred operating system as well as optional extras such as firewalls, security, upgrades and backups.

Not only are these optional extras available, managed hosting can be fully customised to each company’s business goals and requirements. Experts will architect managed IT solutions, allowing businesses to scale their environment as they expand and combine various technologies to support varying performance requirements.

Managed hosting trades in the flexibility offered by colocation for a more convenient and sophisticated approach that gives more peace of mind to companies. As a customer of a managed hosting provider, you do not have to worry about maintaining IT hardware, managing on-site data or monitoring applications, everything is handled by experts and many providers commit a member of staff to be your point of contact. This level of service guarantees uptime and service delivery, along with comprehensive measures and processes to ensure customer data, applications and services are highly secure and permanently available.

Furthermore, those providers with interconnectivity capabilities can liaise with businesses to develop comprehensive disaster recovery plans to ensure every eventuality is covered in regards to the client’s primary facility, and able to be recovered or solved at any time.

With support available 24/7, experts can client-tailor IT strategies and infrastructure architecture with the end goal of developing solutions that scale appropriately to the unique business and technical needs of a specific client.

If you wish to be in the driver’s seat and reap the flexibility benefits of colocation, Luminet can support your requirements.

Find out more about Luminet colocation services