Digital storage, no matter the size of the business, plays a central role in the digital world. There was a time when many small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) couldn’t bear the cost of physical servers and all the operational costs that came with it. As they say, change is the only constant. Where else to look than in a digital world where this line lives to its words? Over the past decade, cloud storage has been revolutionized so that small or medium-sized businesses can start their business and services without worrying about costs.
Colocation has various advantages for SMEs, including cost savings, scalability, security, reliability and uptime, and access to experts. In this post, we’ll go over these advantages in further depth and explain why colocation should be an appealing alternative for your business wishing to upgrade its IT infrastructure without breaking the bank.
What is Colocation
Colocation for small businesses means they can focus on growth as there is no need for special in-house infrastructure or logistics. Colocation takes care of that, as businesses can host their servers and storage from data center providers. Therefore, colocation is a popular solution for small and medium-sized enterprises as third-party providers take care of physical security, servers, and connectivity of equipment. Hivelocity is a proud colocation service provider with industry-leading custom solutions, as it has colocation centers across many states in America.
Benefits of Colocation Solutions
Suppose you are a small or medium-sized enterprise (SME) that is hosting its data on physical servers, already regretting the decision and thinking of a way out. Well, there is no better solution than opting for colocation. Here’s why.
Cost Saving
Cost saving is the most significant advantage as, unlike physical servers, where businesses have to invest in physical space, infrastructure, and hiring of IT staff. In colocation, all aspiring business ventures must share a data center with other tenants while still having full authority over their IT infrastructure. As an alternative, you share the costs with other tenants in colocation. It’s like a pool, where you get only what you pay for. Moreover, colocation centers are highly energy efficient, with modern cooling and power management technology used to reduce energy use.
Performance
As a business, you can store all the data, services, and applications on colocation servers in an off-site location. After the server is deployed to your business in a provider’s data center, the provider ensures its operations and backup. Every co-located server has a dedicated IP address that is unique to your business. Servers are always monitored with 24/7 technical support and on-site help, and specialists are always ready in case of an emergency.
As colocation facilities are often located closer to major internet exchanges and network access points, they provide low-latency connections. Besides, if you invest in your physical servers, you have to consider installing cooling systems to maintain performance. Colocations facilities take care of that. Hivelocity with its colocation facilities in Colorado Springs and other major states of America means you always get the most reliable performance.
Scale as you grow
It’s good to be ambitious, but don’t let your ambitions hold you back just by servers. When your business grows, you can always scale up your data options at flexible costs. Colocation can provide additional rack space and higher bandwidth without worrying about long-term commitments or investments.
Customizable service agreements include short-term contracts, service-level contracts, and different pricing models. You can grow your server capacities at a colocation facility as per your requirement. Hivelocity also provides colocation solutions just as per your demand, so you worry less about the costs and focus on scaling the business.
Reliable Uptime
Colocation facilities provide server cooling, power, and communication technologies to assure a continuous connection. As a small business, if you invest in equipment and methods to establish similar systems in-house, which can cost you fortunes in terms of money, employees, and space. When you are worry-free from this, you can be sure about reliable uptime as in service level agreements, a minimum level of uptime is promised by the colocation provider.
Colocation facilities also provide redundancy and backup solutions to ensure that the IT infrastructure remains operational even in the case of a power outage, natural disaster, or any unforeseen incident.
Security
Colocation centers are built to secure your systems from the theft and other threats that could compromise the security of your data. Physical security for data security such as video monitoring, private suites, and fire detection and suppression systems are some of the ways to ensure physical security. When it comes to network security measures, colocation centers provide firewalls, intrusion detection systems, and DDoS protection to protect your data against cyber threats. Firewalls are security devices that monitor and filter traffic to prevent unauthorized access, and intrusion detection systems monitor network traffic for any malicious activity such as attempted attack. DDoS attacks can also be a threat to your business when your network’s traffic is overwhelmed with malicious traffic, making it inaccessible to legist users.
If you are a small and medium-sized enterprise (SME) wishing to enhance its IT infrastructure, colocation should be the solution. Many advantages can help you in cost savings with better scalability, dependable uptime, expert access, and network security. So, you can focus on expansion without worrying about the cost of physical servers and the accompanying operational expenditures by hosting your servers and storage with colocation operators. Hivelocity, for example, offers bespoke solutions that enable enterprises to increase their data options at variable costs with colocation centers at prime locations such as Colorado Springs among others. Furthermore, colocation facilities provide dependable uptime, redundancy, backup solutions, physical and network security, and energy economy, allowing your business to focus on core activities rather than IT infrastructure.
