What is Colocation? Should my business consider colocation?

What is Colocation?

Colocation is a service that enables an organisation to rent space, power and connectivity for their servers and other networking equipment within a data centre that is owned (or operated) by a third party, such as CloudConnX. 

Colocation enables businesses to benefit from the advantages of a data centre without the commitment and hefty investment that comes with building their own facility.

What are the benefits of colocation?

• Access more robust infrastructure than a typical on-premise solution.

• Colocation offers a more deterministic and potentially cost-effective approach when compared to alternatives such as AWS/Azure. 

Reliability is a big advantage of colocation. Data centre facilities provide redundant power and cooling systems, minimising the risk of an outage. 

Increased security. By locating your equipment in a data centre through colocation you benefit from the physical security of the facility which may include surveillance, biometric access controls, and onsite security. Firewalls and intrusion detection systems protect your data within the network. 

Scalability- Unlike on-premise data centres with restricted capacity and footprint, colocation offers much more scalability, enabling businesses to expand or contract their resources as needed. 

Better performance- By locating your hardware in a colocation data centre you gain access to the latest network technologies. The proximity of data centres to major network providers also reduces latency. 

• Enable hybrid approaches. Colocation facilities enable businesses to operate a hybrid model, integrating both cloud and colocation together. With the recent increase in service outages seen from purely cloud approaches this is of growing importance should businesses wish to minimise the risk of service disruptions.

Access to Data Centre expertise- A team of experts continually monitor, manage and maintain the data centre. Remote hands support is also available.

Disaster recovery- Colocation enables businesses to geographically distribute their servers and networking equipment to ensure that a localised event doesn’t impact all locations.  

What to look for in a colocation provider:

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Questions to ask a colocation provider include: 

 • How safe and secure is the facility? 

 • How redundant is the facility in terms of power and network uptime? 

 • How flexible are their colocation services (contract lengths, range of rack size options, bandwidth, power usage, remote hands)? 

 • What uptime does the facility guarantee? 

 • Does the provider own or lease the data centre? 

 • Does the provider provide any additional support if needed? Are there engineers on site? 

Security considerations: 

When evaluating a colocation provider, it is important to consider the security measures they have in place. The data centre in which you are looking to locate your equipment within should be compliant with industry-standard security standards. This means that all aspects of the colocation provider's operations must be secure and up to date in order to protect sensitive customer data. 

It is also important to make sure that the colocation provider has taken steps to ensure compliance with applicable laws and regulations, such as GDPR and HIPAA. The provider should also have a comprehensive security policy in place, which includes measures such as encryption, firewalls, malware protection, and regular vulnerability scans. Lastly, it is important to evaluate the physical security of the facility itself, including access control systems and other measures designed to prevent unauthorized access or tampering with equipment or data. 

Connectivity and power considerations: 

All data centres should offer high levels of ultrafast connectivity. Power backup should be in place so that if the mains power goes down batteries take over as an immediate back-up. Generators should also be on hand to keep the data centre running for days if required. 

Environmental monitoring and cooling equipment: 

 A range of sensors should monitor the temperature, humidity, water leakage, airflow, air quality, smoke, and security within a data centre. Cooling equipment should be in place to maintain optimal temperatures. When you are providing your own hardware at a cost to your business it is important to ensure that the data centre you select to locate it within provides optimal conditions ensuring longevity of the equipment. 

Colocation as part of a data repatriation strategy:

Data repatriation refers to an emerging trend amongst large and small organisations alike where serious consideration is being given to move all or some of the applications and data they currently host in cloud services such as Amazon AWS or Microsoft Azure. 

In the last couple of months alone we have seen outages make news headlines. On the 19th July we saw a predicted 8.5million windows devices impacted by the CrowdStrike outage. The number given by Microsoft means it is probably the largest ever cyber-event, eclipsing all previous hacks and outages. 5000 flights were grounded, broadcasters were forced off air, healthcare and banking systems were down. Major UK supermarkets including Tesco, Sainsbury's, Asda, Morrisons and Waitrose reported issues with online services and many businesses were left with issues with their payroll software. This outage that originated from a problem caused by an update to Crowdstrike antivirus software caused global disruption and left many businesses considering data repatriation away from the cloud, or a hybrid approach at minimum. 

Colocation offers a great opportunity for businesses looking to move away from reliance on cloud services such as AWS and Azure. 


 To read more about CloudConnX Colocation services please click here.