Colocation is a system where an organization utilizes the space and other resources from a data center provider for housing its IT infrastructure. With colocation, the business has control over their IT assets and will have to manage and monitor their servers with their own team, of technical experts. They have to provide for the software and hardware updates, upgrades and security patches. In case of issues they have arrange for the component replacement too. However, some of the hosts also offer managed services where the colocation customer can leave monitoring and managing works of their server and other infrastructure to the hosts at an additional cost.
There are several advantages for an organization to avail the colocation services1. Cost effective: It saves an organization the time and high cost of constructing their own data center.
2. Continuity: colocation ensures that the business will still be running without any interruption even when an organization is moving from one location to another.
3. Power supply: Colocation allows a business to run continuously without having to incur any expenditure on power. The host takes responsibility of providing uninterrupted power and maintain the power backup equipment.
In other words, the
data center owner providers power,
storage space,
backup services, cooling solutions and other infrastructure to the customer. The space is usually measured in cage, rack or cabinet.