Today’s IT managers are no longer responsible for the day-to-day technical operations of an organization. At least, they shouldn’t be. IT managers should be strategic thinkers who guide the organization’s technological vision rather than spend time on tasks that can easily be handled by their staff. Engaging with data center colocation providers can be one of the best ways to facilitate freeing your IT resources.
Thanks to technological advancements, organizations can outsource their IT infrastructure to a managed services provider. With colocation, businesses rent different facets of a data center instead of buying them. IT managers can rent and outsource everything from servers, storage, and networking equipment to ancillary data center features, such as space, heating and cooling, and physical security.
Let’s look at the top 10 reasons that a company should consider data center colocation.
Fiscal Responsibility
Investing in a data center can be costly, and it's usually unnecessary. Instead of taking on the risk of purchasing data center equipment and being responsible for all that goes with it, organizations can colocate with a managed services provider and rent the equipment. This removes the risk of owning a lot of expensive equipment as well as the challenges of hiring staff members to maintain and protect it.
Security
Data center security differs from data security. Data centers must think about physical security and the people who are allowed to enter the facility. Consideration needs to be paid to who works there and what infrastructural protections are in place. Colocation facilities resolve this problem by providing your servers with the proper physical safeguards and giving appropriate staff credentials to access them.
Network Speed and Reliability
Networks can be sensitive, but colocated data centers have built-in networks that are stronger than systems that are hosted on the premises. This ensures that the network will remain fast and give users easy access to data and a reliable success rate. Leading data center colocation facilities have redundant networks to ensure the highest availability.
Regulations and Compliance
You may be subject to state or federal laws that regulate how you handle the data your business holds, not to mention the industry standards that your business would be wise to meet in order to provide customers with a certain level of trust. Colocation facilities know these rules and likely have clients in the same workforce. They can ensure that your facility meets and exceeds these standards while providing you with excellent service. Working with a colocation facility will ensure that your organization follows all protocols in total compliance.
Backup and Power
Data centers build their business on reliability, so they have to prepare themselves for a potential disaster. A good data center will have redundancies in place in case of power outages. They will also have a backup as an additional safety measure. This ensures that heating and cooling will continue to keep your servers running optimally, so your systems always remain functional.
Uptime Reliability
IT downtime can cost a company a lot of money, so working with a provider that can guarantee 99.9 percent uptime is well worth the expense alone. When you colocate with a managed service data center, you can rest assured that it has network, power, air conditioning, UPS, generators and other redundancies to make sure your systems never go down. If they do go down, you can feel confident that redundant systems are in place to take over without you even knowing.
Staff Skills
Data centers are not just empty buildings that take care of themselves. The right data center facility employs highly trained professionals who manage a state-of-the art infrastructure, so you don’t need to. These professionals can be an extension of your IT team by managing access to the building, controlling the temperature to keep equipment cool, and working with you to ensure that the center continues to meet your needs.
Flexibility
Flexibility is one of the greatest benefits of colocation. If your business expands rapidly, and you need to add more computing power, the infrastructure is already in place. With colocation, you can expand your IT footprint easily and get the capacity you need. This may be difficult with an on-premises data center, where you may be limited by space or the inability to purchase new and expensive equipment.
Service Quality
Top-notch colocation facilities employ the IT expertise needed to provide businesses with their computing needs. A Quality of Service (QoS) service level agreement should be established at the partnership’s onset and clearly agreed upon. Generally, 99.99 percent agreement is what you should expect. Colocation facilities provide power, security, and reliability. Their sole job is to keep your information technologies running at all times, so when you choose a colocated data center, you know you are getting a team that is dedicated to your organization’s productivity.
Disaster Recovery
Bad things sometimes happen. For example, if a flood shuts down a data center, the entire power grid on the East Coast may go out. Colocation provides disaster recovery solutions because your information is kept in a separate location from the primary facility. In fact, it's typically stored in another part of the country or the world. This ensures that if something knocks out your systems in one place, a backup will be ready, and your company's losses will be minimal to nonexistent.