Enterprise Features

A Small-Business Owner’s Guide to Colocation

by Paul Rudo on 27/12/12 at 2:22 pm

Your small business is expanding, but you don’t have the capital or expertise to employ a well-staffed and technologically competitive IT department. Luckily for you, colocation might just be the answer to your budgetary woes, but you still aren’t sure if this technology is necessary or affordable. Colocation hosting allows you to reap the benefits of a provider’s world-class equipment and exceptional bandwidth at a fraction of the cost of owning and maintaining the hardware yourself. Before searching for a colocation provider, learn more about the technology and how it will benefit your small business’s bottom line.

What Is Colocation?

It can cost thousands to build a secure data center and hire the necessary IT support team to protect your company’s privileged information. Add this to the cost of bandwidth, and operating an on-site facility probably seems unrealistic. Colocation allows you to store your servers at an off-site facility while reaping the benefits of the provider’s IT support team. On top of this, you’re able to share the colocation’s bandwidth with other customers and you’re provided with an IP address, both of which save you money.

The Top Benefits for Your Small Business

You’re beginning to understand the benefits of colocation, but you still aren’t convinced this service is right for your moderate enterprise and budget. Here are a few more reasons why colocation is the best way to protect your company’s servers and why finding the right provider can actually save you money over the long-term.

• Stability. As the owner of an ever-expanding small business, you know growth inevitably necessitates moving to a larger facility. Sure, it may only take a few hours and a sore back to transport your equipment or merchandise, but what happens to your website while you make the move? Colocation offers you stability in this situation and helps ensure your website and business never suffer a second of costly downtime.
• Security. You might assume that the world’s most ingenious cybercriminals are not interested in your modest business; however, a study performed by a top Internet security company found that the majority of targeted attacks that occurred in the first half of 2012 were directed at companies with fewer than 250 employees. Server colocation provides you with a level of security you couldn’t afford otherwise.
• Protection From Potential Outages. From floods to human error, power outages are just an unfortunate part of life. Unlike an on-site data center, colocation facilities are equipped with several generators that ensure your servers are running and well-protected, no matter how long it takes the power company to resolve the issue.
• Shared Costs. An average colocation facility houses and supports the servers of hundreds or thousands of businesses, both large and small. This means you’re splitting the bill with other businesses, which allows you to enjoy a state-of-the-art facility and world class IT support for a fraction of the cost of your traditional, on-site storage data center.
• Maintenance. Are you completely sure where to begin if your server fails or any other component of your data center begins to suddenly malfunction? If the answer to that question is “No,” colocation is the best way to keep your small business’s IT equipment well maintained.
• Bandwidth. During the initial stages of creating your company’s website, you probably budgeted for the cost of design, domain names and other promotion of your goods or services on the Web. What you might not have realized is the price of bandwidth, which can be exorbitant. A typical colocation facility will provide you with the bandwidth and speed you’ll need to operate and potentially expand your webpage.

Before shopping around for a colocation facility in your area, consider how much rack space you’ll require and determine a realistic budget. Don’t hesitate to ask the colocation’s helpful staff as many questions as you need to feel comfortable stepping into this 21^st-century technology.

About the Author: Guest blogger Fredrick Myers is an IT specialist representing ScaleMatrix. He’s preparing a series of blog posts to help small-business owners save as much money as possible on their technology needs.

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