Choosing the right environment for hosting your IT infrastructure can be challenging. Whether you’re just starting a small business or preparing for a migration, understanding your options and needs is crucial before making a choice. Colocation data centers have been a popular choice for organizations seeking a high-security and high-reliability hosting option for their workloads. But it’s important to know that there are unmanaged and managed colocation options available, and understanding the differences can be crucial for your future success.
If you’re new to colocation and want to get a grip on what this hosting option covers, or you think you might need to switch colocation providers and are looking for a reliable option, read on! This article will unpack the differences between managed and unmanaged colocation to help you make an informed decision based on your organization’s specific needs. Let’s get started.
What is Colocation?
Let’s start by defining colocation. By TechTarget’s definition, a colocation facility “is a data center or telecommunications facility in which a business can rent space for servers, storage devices, and other computing and networking hardware.” When an organization chooses colocation, usually it’s their part of the responsibility to bring the servers, storage, and network devices, while the colocation data center operator provides the space with cooling, power supply, physical security, perimeter surveillance, and connectivity.
Colocation can be a suitable choice for supporting an entire IT infrastructure, but it’s also possible to rent space for just a part of it. Space can be rented by rack, cabinet, cage, or room, allowing businesses to buy as much as they need and scale as they go.
On top of the basic colocation services, some providers offer managed colocation services. These services can cover a wide range of assistance to ensure that your servers are operating at peak performance without you having to send someone to do the work on them.
The biggest advantage of colocation is that you can benefit from a robust infrastructure without having to invest in building and maintaining one yourself. Colocation, and especially managed colocation, can significantly improve uptime and security, offering an easily scalable option that doesn’t break the bank.
What Is Unmanaged Colocation?
Unlike managed colocation, unmanaged colocation allows clients to benefit from the basic colocation services, but without the extra services you can opt for with managed colocation. So, if you need to fix something on the server or back up your data, the responsibility to do so falls on you. Managed colocation, smart hands and remote hands services allow you to outsource these duties to the data center’s technicians.
Unmanaged colocation allows you to benefit from using the robust infrastructure of the data center, where the quality and features vary according to the tier certification. Tier certification ranges from I-IV, with IV offering the most security by having high redundancy for power, networks, and cooling in place. Tier IV data centers are the least likely to experience downtime and failures (uptime of 99.9% and upwards), while tier I has only a single path of service in the infrastructure, making it the most prone to downtime (99.6%).
If you’re looking for an unmanaged colocation provider, note that the prices and quality depend on the power, bandwidth, rackspace, and setup services they offer.
What Is Managed Colocation?
Managed colocation services typically vary from provider to provider and are offered on top of basic colocation services. Its main advantages come from being able to outsource many or most server management chores to the data center operator. Server monitoring and tracking, regular data backups, and adjustments needed to the servers can be outsourced to the data center’s team. Along with many other benefits, like not having to tend to the servers physically, managed colocation can offer these services at a fraction of the price an organization would have to pay if they’d deploy a data center of their own.
Choosing to go with managed colocation services from your provider can be very profitable when performed professionally. These services ensure that the risk of downtime is down to the minimum by applying all the necessary measures and executing all the crucial steps for ensuring data safety and uptime. In case you want more control over some deployments and less over others, you can pick the managed services accordingly. This allows organizations a great degree of flexibility and security that can make managed colocation a highly customizable choice, allowing more possibilities than a traditional dedicated server solution.
Managed services can include the following:
- Security Services
- Managed Backups
- Technical Support
- Monitoring and Tracking Services
- Patch Management
- Troubleshooting and Remediation
- Service and Part Replacement
- Load Balancing
- Capacity Planning
Benefits of Managed Colocation
Colocation can offer many benefits, even without managed services. For those who want granular control over their servers and devices but want to benefit from the robust and secure infrastructure of the collocation data center, unmanaged colocation can offer the best option.
For others who want all of these but with a managed solution to give them more freedom, a nice, customized, managed colocation solution is the best choice.
The key features of managed colocation can help cut costs and improve performance. These are the following.
Flexibility and Scalability
Expanding an on-premises data center when scaling becomes necessary can be a headache, especially if there’s not enough room. Building a data center from the ground up can be very expensive, and there’s always a lurking risk of over- or underestimating needs. Colocation, on the other hand, allows probably the easiest scalability out of all options. Since it’s on a pay-as-you-go basis, organizations can benefit from easy and fast scaling as needed.
Outsourced Maintenance
Managed colocation offers the invaluable benefit of outsourcing data center tasks to the colocation provider’s team, freeing up your in-house IT team.
Expert Staff
If you have to manage a data center independently, you need a team of professionals to handle everything from security and networking to power and cooling. With managed colocation, though, you can truly leverage the expertise of the data center staff, saving on costs, and allowing your IT team to focus on more important tasks.
Professional Support
Professional support services from your colocation provider ensure 24/7 availability to handle any issues that could become operational risks. Responsiveness and good customer service ensure minimal downtime and quick resolution of issues, enabling businesses to operate smoothly and maintain trust in their infrastructure.
Lower Operational Costs
By choosing managed colocation instead of administering an on-premises solution, you can reduce your organization’s data center footprint. In the colocation data center, the resources and infrastructure are shared with all the tenants, and as a result, the costs of power, cooling, and security will be much lower.
Choosing the Right Colocation Provider for Your Needs
If you’re looking for an off-premises solution for your servers that offers a high level of support, managed colocation is probably the best choice. Understanding the differences between managed and unmanaged colocation is crucial to making the optimal decision for your needs, so make sure to get sufficient information on what services are available at each potential colocation provider.
At Volico Data Centers, robust, highly redundant, tier IV data centers await our customers with state-of-the-art security and best-in-class support services that ensure solutions to all possible issues before they cause more serious problems. Opt for our managed colocation options and experience how our customizable smart hands services can accelerate your growth!
We offer a range of managed services, including:
If you’d like to learn more about managed and unmanaged colocation or Volico’s services, call (305) 735-8098, message us in chat, take a virtual tour of our facilities, or schedule an appointment!
