When your data is stored with Colocation Company, it becomes highly secured and monitored by their technical experts. This vendor offers 24/7 support, building security and infrastructure such as power, cooling, fire protection and redundancy.

The most important fact of choosing a colocation provider is – making more effective use of capital and having a higher quality facility for your mission-critical applications.

How do you determine quality in colocation facility selection?

These are the factors to consider when choosing colocation services:

• Quality of The Facility
• Cooling
• Fire Protection
• Connectivity
• Physical Location
• Redundancy
• Provider’s Business Health
• Service Offered

(Dig deep to know if the provider operates the facility 24/7 or its managed by a remote handle) this key factor can make a difference in the quality of service provided and physical security.

Benefits of Colocation

• Connectivity

The 24/7 support service is frequent enough to keep all your data running smoothly, and design to ensure that there no downtime for end users. One of the crucial benefits is that colocation providers provide that your data are connected (non-stop) to the border world 24/7.

• Performance

Electronic data and equipment function more efficiently in cold temperature and a dust-free environment. No offices can be compared with the cooling and air filtration systems that a professional data centre provides.

• Redundancy

Speaking of 100% uptime, a pivotal element to think about is redundancy. Colocation data centres offer N+1 redundancy. That is, components (N) have at least one level of redundancy. For example, there are backup generators in case of power failure.

• Power and Cooling

Power and cooling are without a doubt the hottest buttons in colocation today. It is essential for customers to speak the same language as providers when it comes to power requirements. Customers need to understand their power — where it is coming from and how they use it — to be sure they are on the same page as providers.

When it comes to assessing internal facility capabilities for a data centre, this is more than a simple available office space issue. Companies need to look at do they have the infrastructure to build a data centre — covering areas like power, cooling, fire suppression systems and more.

There is a need for temperatures to be controlled. The colocation providers monitor the temperature at a different location and install powerful air condition to keep component within their optimal range. Colocation providers also regulate humidity. End users that are in areas of high humidity will keep air below the dew point to avoid condensation. There is also a humidification system to prevent static electricity discharge in an area with low humidity.

• Fire Protection

Colocation centres engaged in active (fire suppression system) and passive (sensitive smoke detectors) fire protection elements.

• Speed

Data centres and colocation facilities offer cost-effective, fast connections directly to multiple internet service providers to provide top performance and redundancy in the event of connection interruption or overload.

• Cost and Space Savings

Data service offer a clean room and 24/7 monitoring while freeing up a valuable office space.

• Performance

Electronic equipment performs best in a constant cool temperature and a dust-free environment. Even the cleanest offices can’t compare with the cooling and air filtration systems that a professional data centre provides.

• Risk Management

Emergencies happen, but when your mission-critical equipment operates at an off-site data centre, you’ll have redundancies and security in place to continue operations unaffected.

• Security

Colocation providers offered multi-layered security protection. They install CCTV cameras and also make use of biometric identification for access and have enclosures to cordon off various tenant equipment.

At a base level is physical security. Customers should develop a comprehensive understanding of a provider’s security approach. Are they staffed internally or do they use contractors? Where are the security cameras and how is data retained? How are access rights granted into the facility and to your specific environment? Security considerations also need to extend to the logical layer, such as Internet services, to be sure your applications and data are protected from external threats.

An application is more inherently secured in a colocation facility than in your data canter. This facilities and data centres are designed to ensure that your data are protected from burglars, fires and other things that can compromise the security of your information.

• Scalability

Colocation offers your company the flexibility to scale up or down easily while allowing you to pay for only the space and power you need and just when you need it.

• Disaster Recovery Consideration

If a company does its homework in the selection process, it will statistically reduce the probability it will experience a physical outage by utilising a quality colocation provider.

Companies should utilise either their own facility or another site offered by the provider as a secondary site. And the secondary site should be ‘far enough’ away to be outside the disaster area of the primary but also ‘close enough’ to be able to leverage technologies like synchronous replication is required. Also, look for a colocation provider experienced in providing both production and secondary sites so they can map to your complete needs.

One disaster recovery best practice that is sometimes overlooked is testing. Companies should commit to regular testing to be sure their disaster preparedness plans can quickly recover the applications most critical in running the business.

Conclusion

While the needs a colocation provider fulfils may seem necessary: access to high-quality data centre space; power; carrier diversity and high availability bandwidth with redundant networks; and more predictable costs, working with a reliable provider that offers higher levels of availability and makes continuous investments in its infrastructure will result in real cost benefits.

Working with a reliable provider that offers higher levels of availability and makes continuous investments in its infrastructure will result in real cost benefits.