Trends

Insights into choosing the right colocation provider

A colocation provider is a data centre that permits clients to house their servers within its racks, sharing bandwidth. Certain colocation providers also offer interconnection services to facilitate edge-to-core digital goals.

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Headline

A colocation provider is a data centre that permits clients to house their servers within its racks, sharing bandwidth. Certain colocation providers also offer interconnection services to facilitate edge-to-core digital goals.

Context

In response to data centre closures, consolidations, and migrations, as well as the rise of core-to-edge strategies, organisations are increasingly turning to colocation providers for services beyond the conventional space, power, and cooling. Organisations leverage colocation services and data centre interconnect fabrics to seamlessly integrate diverse applications, data types, and sources in a secure, reliable, and low-latency manner, which is pivotal for digital business success.

Evidence

Pending intelligence enrichment.

Analysis

In some cases, data centres are evolving into noncore, remote facilities that handle non-x86 workloads and legacy applications. Certain colocation providers also offer interconnection services to facilitate edge-to-core digital goals. A colocation provider is a data centre that permits clients to house their servers within its racks, sharing bandwidth as though it were their own. Opting to store servers with a colocation provider is often more economical than maintaining them on a client’s premises. In this setup, clients have the freedom to install their own servers and equipment in a rack provided by the data centre. The data centre then supplies an IP address, bandwidth, and power to the server. Beyond the typically lower cost of bandwidth, firms utilising a colocation provider typically benefit from superior outage protection and enhanced security measures. As the server hardware and software remain the property of each colocation client, they are not reliant on the provider for software installations, upgrades, or critical maintenance.

Key Points

  • A colocation provider is a data centre that permits clients to house their servers within its racks, sharing bandwidth.
  • Certain colocation providers also offer interconnection services to facilitate edge-to-core digital goals.

Actions

Pending intelligence enrichment.

Author

Elodie Qian (e.qian@btw.media)· author profile pending