The way your data is stored and managed is the biggest difference between hosting within a colocation data center and on the cloud. Storing your data at a data center with colocation or storing it in the cloud is a matter of preference and convenience.
Both colocation and cloud-based and hybrid systems allow for the shared cost of storage, whether it’s physical or virtual.
While there are pros and cons to both setups, it comes down to whether you need physical access to your data.
Benefits of the data center
With colocation, you own your servers and equipment, but lease the space inside a data center with other renters (hence the co- in colocation).
There are many other benefits to colocation, including the following:
- Sharing the facility = sharing and lowering costs. Between the cost of communication and data center square footage, the cost of power, cooling and HVAC systems, sharing these with other tenants lowers the cost for everyone.
- Best for those who need full control over equipment. Companies can maintain their own equipment the same way they do when servers are installed in-house.
- Overcome the limitations of an existing data center. It’s much cheaper to supplement the current data center by using the space in a colocation facility, instead of building a new data center.
- Access to higher bandwidth levels. Compared to a normal office server room, housing data hardware in a colocation data center gives companies access to higher levels of bandwidth at a much lower cost.
- Data centers in a colocation facility are more reliable. Because of the numerous data backups in place, renters have greater protection from power outages and access to low-latency networking options.
- Get a higher level of physical protection. Almost every colocation center uses more stringent measures for securing data, such as CCTV monitoring, fire detection and suppression systems, and private suites.
With cloud services, the provider manages your servers, storage and network elements. Their staff sets all of these up, cutting capital expenditure and operating expenditure costs.
Considering a data center hybrid model
One of the more recent trends in business infrastructure is a data center hybrid model. This structure blends both the onsite physical data center and the cloud as needed to fulfill computing and data requirements.
The flexibility of this model is appealing because it can flex and grow as needed with business and consumer demands. When more storage is needed, the cloud acts as an on-demand supply shop.
In the hybrid model, the cloud (servers, storage and networking components) also lives inside data centers. The hybrid model allows customers to have less mission-critical applications like Office 365, email, etc. in the cloud versus on their own servers in a data center.
By utilizing FIBERTOWN’s Megaport connection, we can connect customers to the cloud and to other data center locations as needed.
This model allows users to leverage and enhance efficiency, effectively lowering costs, and improving agility.
FIBERTOWN COVID-19 response and free services
We want to do everything possible to help your business during the pandemic.
We are also committed to keeping the health of our personnel, customers and others a top priority. Read more here about our precautionary COVID-19 response measures.
With the significant rise in positive COVID-19 test results in recent weeks, FIBERTOWN is now extending our offer of free on-site hands and eyes service until December 31, 2020.
You can utilize our FIBERTOWN personnel as an extension of your own team — stay safe and we’ll do everything here for you.
Contact us to discuss your data center and cloud needs and these free services at FIBERTOWN.