As a business owner, you’ve no doubt faced this question: where to store your data? You have numerous options at your disposal, but which one is right for you? And how do you know that this solution is going to provide the best return on investment?
Many business owners are turning to colocation services for optimising scalability whilst protecting their information.
Here are a few reasons why it is a better option than onsite housing:
What is colocation & what are its benefits?
Wholesale colocation server hosting houses your privately owned servers in a third-party location. These locations offer incredibly reliable and secure infrastructure, ensuring you can share cooling, connectivity and power costs with other businesses. An advanced location provides 24/7 security and support. They will ensure that you can focus on daily operations whilst your information remains highly accessible.
There are myriad benefits to this service, including:
- Cost-efficiency: These locations allow your business to save on building, operating and maintaining your own onsite infrastructure. It is a highly-efficient option for businesses looking for ultimate flexibility.
- Reduced IT costs: Through outsourcing your information management, you can greatly reduce the costs that would exist if you had your own onsite hardware.
- Greater bandwidth: Wholesale virtual server hosting can provide greater bandwidth than onsite networks. This can ensure improved connectivity and faster download speeds.
- Greater security & redundancy: This solution typically offers redundant cooling, power and network access. What’s more, they typically provide enhanced security features that protect against both online and physical threats.
What is an onsite centre?
Conversely, an onsite data centre is a privately owned location where you can host your servers and network technology. You will build, operate and maintain your own location, providing you ultimate control over your information and infrastructure.
Whilst this system provides advanced control, there are numerous drawbacks that business owners are happy to go without. These include:
- Payment costs: Building and implementing an onsite data location requires plenty of capital to invest in the construction, equipment and efficient implementation.
- Onsite costs: Running an onsite location requires continuous staff and resources for managing and operating the facility.
- One failure location: An onsite centre doesn’t contain the redundancy features of an offsite location. This makes them highly susceptible to equipment failures, online threats, power outages and more.
What to consider when choosing between the two?
Cost-efficiency
You must decide whether an onsite data centre is a viable option for your budget. You may have the control, but this comes at a huge price, whereas colocation ensures a far cheaper price with a high level of access and security.
Flexibility
Colocation servers are generally far more flexible and scalable than onsite locations. They allow business owners to scale their operations as they need whilst providing a safe and secure location to house their information.
Security
Perhaps one of the greatest advantages of offsite centres are their security features. With features like data backups and onsite staff, you can trust that offsite locations are highly advanced in terms of security.
Management staff
The final consideration regards who you want to manage your network. Are you happy to outsource your management to a 24/7 team at an offsite location? This is often a highly viable option as you have round-the-clock support. Conversely, an onsite data centre means you will have to rely on your in-house staff to manage operations. This can often be problematic if something happens outside of office hours.
So, which system is right for your business? There is a clear winner when it comes to cost, security and scalability!
