With several options available for managing and storing your business data and applications, how do you know what will work best for your corporation? For companies trying to decide between cloud and colocation, understanding the difference will make the selection process a little easier.
Both cloud and colocation offer alternatives to on-premise data center approaches, but each is suited to satisfy different business environments. The selection of one over the other should be based on your business objectives.
But before anything else, it is important to grasp the differentiating features of colocation and cloud.
Colocation
Maintaining in-house data centers require peripheral infrastructure including power distribution, cooling and electrical equipment. Colocation is a setup that allows businesses to outsource these peripheral resources to another firm. A provider offers space in a data center, supplying network bandwidth, cooling, security and backup to run IT equipment.
You are able to visit the facility and install new equipment when required, which gives you the level of control to satisfy regulatory. Specifically, it means you still own the equipment and control of your IT density. Colocation also enables faster rollouts, since the customer is using a running facility. It is usually accompanied by a contract term for a monthly fee.
Traditional IT deployments can lead to unexpected costs such as monitoring and management of inefficiencies, particularly when setting up a new data center. Colocation providers also offer managed services; look for a provider offering all the options for reducing the need of hiring new staff. You can also designate certain functions to the provider and maintain control over others.
The disadvantage is that a fixing a problem at a colocation site can be inconvenient. When you rely on a distant provider, replacing and servicing your equipment could involve time and expense. Also, your cost may significantly vary each month depending on usage of resources such as network bandwidth.
Cloud computing
Cloud is different from colocation as you do not own hardware, which makes it an intangible platform. All resources – along with the facilities – are under the cloud service provider’s control.
According to RedIT cloud services, providers can tailor cloud solutions to specific application and company needs using server virtualization, storage, security and networking capabilities. And when any of the requirements change over time, providers work with you to dynamically calculate resources for meeting your changing workloads.
And scalability aside, cloud services also result in economics of scale. As the provider is responsible for all aspects of the data center, the customer bears no capital cost. Further, low startup costs give your IT department the freedom to be flexible and dynamic.
However, cloud computing can cost you more than traditional IT if you’re not careful. Network cost can drown your perceived savings, so it is important to research your business needs. A reliable provider can help you address such requirements.
Colocation or Cloud: making a decision
Both of these solutions are cost-effective to in-house data center approaches; however it is your specific requirements that determine which solution is invested in. When data center costs are large and building your own does not make sense, colocation will provide value in terms of cost and flexibility. Cloud computing will be ideal when you want to keep costs low and free up additional resources to focus on other aspects of business operations.
