Dedicated servers vs. colocation
As your business grows and becomes more successful, you may have to decide whether to colocate your own equipement or lease dedicated servers from a hosting provider.
The decision to colocate or lease depends upon the long-term goals of your business, the complexity of your solutions and the number of servers your business requires. If your cash flow is good and your services can run on less than cutting-edge equipment, purchasing and colocation are the way to go.
Businesses who colocate use their own equipment. The equipment is sent to the colocation provider's facility, installed and typically not touched by the provider unless there is an issue that requires immediate intervention or unless the business has negotiated a management agreement with the provider. Equipment is typically owned by the business that is securing colocation services.
In addition, software licenses are owned by the business that owns the equipment. Colocation gives your business the flexibility to plan for growth, to incorporate mirroring, load balancing and other options that are not available on a leased basis.
Colocation may appear to offer similar benefits to dedicated servers but there are in fact many hidden costs and risks involved. It’s not as cheap and easy as you might think.
- Capital expenditure - With colocation you have the initial capital expenditure of buying all equipment upfront, then sourcing a hosting facility in which to place it. With the additional costs of keeping your hardware and parts up to date. Dedicated servers present more headache free solutions with all maintenance, network and facilities managed by the hosting provider, usually accompanied by a parts and hardware warranty. By spreading the cost in affordable instalments you significantly reduce your up-front capital expenditure for faster ROI.
- Network - Another sizable cost of colocation comes from creating your own network infrastructure. As a dedicated server client you benefit from hosting on one of the only self-healing networks in the UK, that incorporates multi-homing & server load-balancing for guaranteed performance.
- Resources - For your business to really flourish online it is imperative that you have the necessary disaster recovery solutions in place at all times when colocating, including expert technicians and replacement parts. With dedicated servers the host manages it all for you, so you don’t have to worry. There are highly qualified technicians’ on-hand 24/7, 365 days a year who can be at your server within minutes.
To find out more on dedicated severs or colocation click on the link or request more information online.
