When you’re looking to improve your company’s IT infrastructure, there are many concepts that you must understand. From the benefits of colocation to how your cloud system works and what maintenance it requires, your head will be taking in a lot of information. As a result, some concepts may jumble together or become confusing in any number of other ways.
This article will try to help you assuage your confusion in this article by discussing the difference between managed services and colocation and describing a few of the benefits of each service. They are commonly served together by providers, so it makes sense why it can be difficult for the busy mind to fully separate them.
What is Colocation?
Colocation is when you rent out space for your IT hardware, such as your servers. In this system, you don’t own the building your hardware is stored in, so you instead rent the space from a third party who does own the building.
These locations supply your systems with the necessary power and cooling to continue running 24/7 and have redundancy systems that protect your hardware from harm when the facility loses power. Many also have high security since the contents of the building are sensitive, important, and typically expensive.
By renting out space in a colocation center, you save the space, time, and money required to house the servers on your premises while still owning your equipment. While this is a massive boon there are many other benefits of colocation to consider.
What are Some of the Benefits of Colocation?
While we mentioned a few of the benefits above, there are many more to take into account when discussing colocation. One of these benefits is flexibility. You want your business to be successful, and you’re messing with a lot of technology to make not only your current operations easier but to ease growth as well.
Colocation centers make this growth even easier because if you house all of your IT infrastructure on-site you’ll experience a lot of growing pains as you expand. You’d need to ensure you have the necessary systems to handle the power and cooling requirements for new servers and hardware, that you have increased your security, that you have enough space for it all, and much more. By utilizing a colocation center, you only need to worry about acquiring the hardware and ensuring that the space you rented is adequate for your new tech.
As you utilize this technology, it’s important that it runs not only all of the time but also quickly and smoothly. You’ll lose business if these things aren’t achieved. As a result, colocation centers have relationships with many internet service providers (ISP) and cloud services. This way, your data is backed up and secured, and anyone can access your sites, apps, and services anytime, anywhere.
If you operate in an area that experiences natural disasters with some form of frequency, then renting out space in a colocation center away from your premises is even more alluring. When your business halts due to flooding, tornadoes, hurricanes, or any number of other disastrous events, you can rest knowing that much of your vital infrastructure is safe.
It will still take time for you to recover, but that time is heavily reduced when your most vital systems are safe and protected away from the disaster you’re facing.
What are Managed Services?
While colocation refers to the housing of your IT infrastructure, managed services refer to the other required services you may be able to take advantage of. For example, we mentioned earlier that some facilities provide security.
This could be considered a managed service. The term is broad and covers a wide range of things as a result, from security to extra IT techs and more. Some centers include managed services, whereas others do not but these locations aren’t required to experience their benefits; many companies and organizations will offer their services to you whether you’re a big data center or not.
This is ultimately because they tend to operate remotely and don’t require space at your physical location. As a result, you can take advantage of many resources you may not be able to otherwise.
What are Some of the Benefits of Managed Services?
There are a wide range of benefits you can expect to enjoy when you employ a managed service provider’s offerings. One massive benefit is the amount of IT support you’ll have. Having a few IT techs on your premises is important when you experience issues, but they will likely be lacking in expertise in a single area due to how much they have to cover on a daily basis.
Managed services, on the other hand, utilize a large number of IT professionals, many of whom are experts in one specific field. Even if the one you get in contact with isn’t sure how to solve your issue they can quickly contact someone who is, and you’ll receive the help you need in a quick and timely manner as a result.
Of course, stopping problems from occurring in the first place is vital. It’s a good thing, then, that this is exactly what managed services strive to do. They are able to monitor your applications, hardware, and more, alongside watching the internet and technology trends. This knowledge will allow them to inform you of any potential risks or issues and offer advice and possible solutions.
Above, we mentioned the benefits of a colocation center in relation to disasters—managed services are another way to ensure the safety of your business when disaster strikes.
As you put your business back together again, issues will arise, and since managed services keep an eye on your systems remotely, they may be able to fix many of your problems before they even become problems. If not, they’ll be able to assist you in the troubleshooting process and provide advice as to what your next steps should be.
While colocation and managed services are typically provided together as a package, they are two separate services that have many benefits even when served separately. Hopefully, you now have a much better understanding of those differences and benefits and can make the best decisions for the future of your business as a result.
Featured image provided by Gerzon Piñata; Pexels; Thanks!
