A Number Of Different Forms Of Colocation Hosting
You can often rent dedicated servers to sort a hosting requirement. Because with dedicated server rental you are also renting the hardware, you can save money by opting for colocation. Colocation means you pay for the hardware up front, but long term you save by just renting rackspace and bandwidth. So what different colo packages can you take up? We will examine them from the largest, to the smallest.
The absolute top ‘colocation package’, so to speak would be to rent a datacentre. With this, you would need a highly sophisticated team to manage power, bandwidth and cooling requirements- not forgetting security. For the vast majority of businesses, this obviously isn’t practical. A datacentre can have thousands of racks over multiple floors, to half a dozen racks in a purpose fitted comms room.
If a datacentre doesn’t fit your budget, you can always consider a private cage or suite. A cage or suit gives you your own private enclosure. The benefits of this is that you are separated from other customers racks.
If a private cage is overkill, then individual racks might be considered. A typical rack delivers 16 amps of power and 40U of space. This is normally enough for about 30 servers. Because of the green lobby concern for the environment and the every increasing cost of power, servers are becoming more and more power efficient. For security and peace of mind, you can access and lock a rack both at the front and back.
If you are looking at only a few servers, then a full rack might be practical and you might consider a quarter or half lockable racks. A half and quarter lockable rack gives the same level of security as a full rack for a lower cost. Sometimes you may find quarter and half lockable racks shared the same power feeds as other lockable rack customers. Make sure you have your own power feed for peace of mind.
Lockable racks might be a little over the top if you only have one or two servers. Don’t fear- there is a colo package for you. There are companies that offer shared rackspace for individual servers. Sold by the U, you can house anywhere from 1U through to a 4U server. Most reputable colocation providers will only allowed supervised access to shared racks- but do be sure to check this out before signing up with a colocation provider. Obviously being in a shared rack you are sharing bandwidth and power with other customers, thus the price reflects the risk.
The various colocation packages demonstrate the choice you have with colo. Whatever you need to host, you should find the right colocation package.
For help with co-location, please visit CCS Leeds, who specialise in collocation.
Tags: co-location, collocation, colo, colocation, colocation hosting, Computers, server co-location
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