Why is Managed Colocation Hosting a Cost Effective Option for Enterprises

When you choose to sign up for collocation services, you can place your servers in the rack space belonging to a third party. This third party is your collocation provider and it will not only offer you space to house the servers; it will also give you bandwidth and network connectivity, HVAC systems and power supplies, technical supports and security. 

So, server collocation hosting will offer you a host of advantages depending on the kind of provider and plan you choose. Usually the collocation host offers salable services so that you may scale up the resources as and when you need to. The provider will on its part ensure that your servers work 100% day and night.

Server collocation brings with it many benefits for enterprises. Perhaps the biggest gain is that you can enjoy superior infrastructure and not be forced to make any upfront payments. This will have an important impact of deployment speeds, security and up-time. Since collocation plans are also salable, adding new servers is easy and you will not have to hire more men to monitor these. Server colocation hosting is distinct from dedicated hosting. In dedicated hosting, the server belongs to the host data center and it is leased by a client enterprise. But, in collocation, the client continues to own the servers which are placed in the facility of a provider. With dedicated hosting, you can hardly expect any downtime periods because clients have full exclusivity of resources. This may be an advantage over standard collocation hosting, but you can enjoy almost all these features when you sign up for managed collocation hosting.

What Are Unmanaged Co location Hosting And Managed Co location Hosting?

In unmanaged collocation hosting, only the infrastructure of the provider can be used; so it is more of a hands-off solution as the provider will not troubleshoot your server problems.  You are solely accountable for everything that goes wrong with the servers. While the solutions may vary from one provider to another, on the whole, unmanaged hosting only gives clients a secure place to keep their servers. On the other hand, in managed collocation hosting, there is a variety of services included. Unlike in unmanaged hosting where the client will remain responsible for tracking, monitoring and securing the servers, in managed hosting, much of these tasks are handled by the provider. In fact, by paying a fixed fee for monthly collocation hosting plans, you can actually save a lot of money that what you may have had to pay in order to deploy these on your own. Managed collocation will typically include services like technical supports, threat assessment and management, asset tracking, patch management, capacity planning, multi-probe monitoring and alerts, troubleshooting, on-site backups and off-site backups, replacement of parts etc. When you can get these services from a provider, you can have complete peace of mind knowing that there are well tested procedures for tackling down times.

What Benefits Will Managed Co location Hosting Plans Offer You?

Ø  If you choose managed collocation hosting, you can decide which services or procedures you want in your package and which you wish to exclude. In other words, you can enjoy a perfect environment whereby you have your server secure and all data backed up while you still have control over situations in case things go wrong. So, the flexibility of such solutions allows you to choose services of your liking. This is definitely a far more customization plan compared to traditional dedicated hosting.

Ø  When you wish to have control over your servers but also want technical supports like you get in dedicated hosting plans, you can choose managed collocation hosting plans. You only need to understand the services offered by the plan clearly before you sign up to know which services still remain your responsibilities.

How To Get A Managed Co location Hosting Provider:

Ø  One of the first things you need to inquire about when choosing a managed collocation host is the kind of data centers the data will be stored in, whether there is enough security to protect the servers and what conditions are mentioned in their SLAs.

Ø  You will also have to know which metrics are going to be monitored on your servers and whether or not you will be alerted when there are abnormalities. So, in case you run out of space, you should ideally be notified well in advance.

Ø  You must also find out how data is getting backed up, whether it is on-site or off-site backup and how frequently data is backed up. You must make sure that there are processed to ensure that no data gets lost. You have a right to be informed when servers are tracked and patches applied.

Ø  Finally, you must know the procedure to be followed in case the server malfunctions. In short, you have to be certain that there is a team at all times to troubleshoot any problem.

Without asking these questions to your managed colocation hosting provider, you cannot be sure that you are getting your money’s worth.