Saturday, November 22, 2014

Features of Colocation services

Many people are not aware of the full features and advantages of colocation services. These services allow even small business to enjoy features that were only available to huge corporations like the Los Angeles colocation services. Why should you use these services.

Colocation means that you have your own hardware and software on site and that you manage your web services yourself. This requires a larger initial investment, since you have to buy all the equipment you need beforehand. It also means that you need to keep at least one IT specialist on site so you can react quickly to technical difficulties and perform server maintenance as needed. Using this option, you effectively set up a data center for your business and manage everything on-site

Colocation avoids the need to own your own data centres and their associated costs and infrastructure by allowing you to locate your server in someone else's rack in their datacentre and share their bandwidth as though it was your own. This is of course more expensive than standard server hosting but is usually much cheaper than the cost of getting a dedicated internet line built into your offices. Once the server is set up (some colo companies provide IT managed services to do this for you too) it is physically moved to the colocation provider and installed in their rack. Some companies also allow you to rent servers from them to save on this additional step. The colocation provider then gets your server up and running and you are able to access it just as you would if it was with a normal hosting provider.

Technical support services are normally vastly superior at colocation facilities than many companies can afford to have in-house. There's also better protection against problems like power outages, temperature increases (or decreases) and data backup facilities. If you are moving offices, opening new offices or otherwise expanding your business your server will keep running regardless, so you won't need to worry about your website, database or other application dropping offline just because someone moving furniture trips over a cable.

A lot of colocation providers provide very secure hosting. Many have very sophisticated security setups - some are even located underground in secured bunkers! - which will normally be far safer than anything most companies can organise internally. Most have a great deal of internal security certification which can make them ideal for PCI DSS compliant hosting if you are handling credit card information or other sensitive data.

Colocation facilities are now becoming significant services for individual and company entrepreneurs who see the need for expansion. Online businesses rely on these types of services to keep up with Internet marketing.