Today’s fast shifting economic environment pushes businesses to provide a great amount of flexibility in all areas. If a company is achieving growth, it’s infrastructure must be ready to quickly scale in order to maintain or offer an increased level of quality of their product or service. Considering the increasing relevance of IT departments, they often come under big pressure to deliver more services, in faster timeframes, with smaller budgets and leaner staff.
At one point, a company’s growth will bump directly into it’s own IT infrastructure limitations. That critical moment usually requires an efficient, long-term solution to be implemented. A rapid growth often involves the need for top performing IT infrastructure which can be expensive and require specific technical skills along with increased maintenance and internal logistic costs. Such an investment can be quite heavy and often far from the core business. Most struggle with data center transformations, and are looking for alternatives to traditional on-premises data center approaches. It’s then they often opt for colocation or cloud-based infrastructure.
Colocation services (also known as “colo”) offer a secure environment for hardware and access to network connectivity that enables reaching customers worldwide. Typically, a colocation service provides the building, cooling, power, bandwidth and physical security while the customer provides servers. Capacities in the facility are leased by the rack, cabinet, cage or room.
For some organizations, colocation may be an ideal solution, but there are a few downsides to watch out when implementing this approach. Geographical distance can translate into increased travel costs when the equipment needs to be managed manually. Also, colocation customers can lock themself into long-term contracts, which prevents re-negotiations when prices fall.
