Colocation hosting refers to a hosting environment where you can place your servers in the rack space belonging to someone else. The colocation hosting provider will not only offer you space for housing your servers and other equipments, it will also provide you with cooling systems, power supplies, security provisions, technical support and bandwidth for your needs. in the past few years, more and more companies have been signing up for colocation hosting because they lack the equipments, tools, space and staff needed to maintain private data centers. Moreover, they do not have the funds to be able to sign up for dedicated hosting. This is why colocation hosting has been steadily gaining ground. But it continues to be affected by many misconceptions and myths.
- One of the most common misconceptions about colocation hosting is that it is just the same as traditional web hosting. The truth is that when you take a server on lease for hosting purposes, it is called web hosting. But in colocation hosting, you can place your own servers in another’s rack space. In standard web hosting there may be traffic swarms because bandwidth and other resources are shared.
- A second myth regarding colocation is that it is highly expensive. While colocation does indeed cost more than traditional web hosting, it is also affordable for almost all businesses. The monthly charges are not too steep and in exchange, you can get constant power supplies, space, human resources etc.
- Another common myth is that colocation hosting is very inconvenient. However, in reality, IT equipments are easily accessible with today’s technologies. No matter where these are located, they can be effectively accessed as well as monitored. When you can sign up with a quality and reputed data center facility, you can enjoy complete support from their experts. So, you do not have to send your staff every time there are needs for repairs.
- Some people seem to have doubts about security of colocation facilities. Incidentally, a data center alone can implement a variety of security features like man traps, biometric scanners, on-site surveillance, monitored cages etc. These measures are far more robust and stringent than you could hope to deploy in your office.
- Another myth regarding colocation is whether it is flexible enough to cater to changing business demands. There is no denying the fact that there are some data centers which are not very flexible; here, you need to over-provision in such facilities for growth. Moreover, scaling resources up and down can be a problem if the data center is outdated. But, if you are able to sign up with a state-of-the-art facility, you can enjoy a high degree of flexibility. Hybrid data centers are most preferred because they offer modular technology and legacy hardware for catering to high-density computing needs.
- Some people even tend to believe that uptime may become a major problem when you choose colocation hosting. This is another common myth because when you choose reliable providers, you can get an uptime guarantee of nearly 99%.
- Contrary to what many think, colocation hosting will never limit scalability. You are free to request your provider to increase or reduce the resources at any point of time. So, you can always meet your fluctuating needs.
- Some people also hold that colocation hosting is best avoided as the support services are not up-to-the-mark. The truth is that all providers will offer support services and you must make the effort to get a provider which can guarantee you round-the-clock support.
- It has been held that colocation does not offer users enough flexibility and control. This is a complete myth because colocation typically gives enough flexibility to users as they get to own the servers. This means they have total control over their resources also. When you have in-house IT experts, you can enjoy complete freedom in choosing operating system or software of your choice. Where you have managed hosting, the provider usually decides on the software and speed of servers.
- Finally, another myth about colocation hosting is that you will not get returns as expected. Colocation hosting is highly affordable if you consider the monthly hosting fees charged by providers. These fees include support, scalability features and security arrangements. So, to be fair, colocation does offer clients an excellent return on their investments.