Colocation Data Centers Offer Several Benefits for Businesses

As business owners bid farewell to 2013 and get ready to face the promise and challenges that the new year will bring, one thing that will not change is the desire to keep their companies running efficiently while keeping costs down.

Other issues, such as staffing or potential security threats are important, but unless the corporation is generating a profit, they won”t matter one bit. Due to its high level of flexibility, colocation offers an attractive alternative to storing all the company data in-house, especially for growing companies.

Advantages of colocation

The main advantage of colocation is that the cost of bandwidth is more economical. Customers may choose the level of service that best meets their level of need and upgrade from a single server to a half cabinet or a full cabinet as necessary.

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Since the colocation data center will be off-site anyway, a business owner is free to shop around to find one that can offer the best prices on water and electricity. These companies provide computer room maintenance and repair functions as part of their services.

If a power outage occurs due to a storm or some type of emergency, having the company”s servers off-site means there”s less chance they will be down for an extended period of time. If the data center is in a different region, power may not be interrupted at all.

If the power does go out, the data center will have backup generators in place that can be activated very quickly to keep client websites running.

Colocation providers may also offer additional services, such as server maintenance. For companies that do not have the budget for a full-time IT support team, this can be a more economical alternative than hiring additional staff members.

When the data center is located too far from the main office to have the company IT team look after support functions, it makes sense to delegate this function to the colocation provider.

Since security is usually an issue where company data is concerned, business owners can rest assured that when they choose to go off-site with a colocation provider, proper precautions will be taken to ensure the servers are protected from potential threats. Providers will likely have 24-hour security on the premises, as well as controlled access to the area where servers are kept.

Colocation makes good sense from a business standpoint in 2014. This flexible option will no doubt grow in popularity over the year to come.