Choosing the right IT infrastructure for your business is an important decision, having a direct impact on your performance, scalability, and costs, as well as a range of other factors. Two of the most popular options at the moment are colocation hosting and cloud services, with each service offering its own set of unique advantages and challenges.
Essentially, colocation involves housing your servers and hardware in a third-party data centre, sharing resources such as power, cooling and security. On the other hand, cloud computing is a solution that reduces the need for physical servers, offering a pool of virtual resources that can be scaled on demand when required.
So, colocation vs cloud: Which option should you choose?
In this blog, we’ll explore the key differences between these two connectivity solutions, helping you to make an informed decision that is suitable for your organisation’s needs. It doesn’t matter whether you’re a growing startup business or an established enterprise either, as understanding the cloud and colocation is essential for building a robust and future-proof IT strategy for any business size.
If you’d like to see how our managed services can help your company, please make an enquiry with our expert team today.
Colocation vs Cloud: The Key Differences
First off: Let’s cover the key differences between colocation and the cloud. Both service offerings are popular forms of network infrastructure, which means they also have their own networking challenges and differences.
With colocation, you store your servers and other computing equipment in a third-party data centre. For a small fee, you’ll get security, cooling, power and network connectivity covered, which can be cheaper than running your own data centre. Whilst you still own your hardware, it’s managed by the provider of the data centre.
However, when using the cloud, all the hardware and servers involved are owned, maintained and operated by your cloud provider. Instead of physically owning your infrastructure, you access the equipment virtually. This means that when using a hosted private cloud, you have a greater ability to scale your business, making it the perfect solution for fluctuating workloads. With colocation, on the other hand, your ability to scale is limited to the capacity of your existing hardware and the funds you have to buy more equipment, which can make scaling your business harder in the long run.
This is essentially the main difference between these two managed services. In the next section, we’ll delve a little deeper into the differences between colocation and the cloud, giving you all the information you need to make the right decision for your business needs.
What Are the Benefits of Each Option?
Hopefully, you should now understand the main differences between colocation and the cloud. However, there’s still much more to learn if you want to discover which of these two options is best for your needs. In some cases, you may even find that using both the cloud and colocation in a hybrid approach is the ideal c choice for your needs.
Here, we’ll take a good look at the positives and negatives of both of these managed services, in the hope that it will help you make your decision further.
The Positives of Colocation
First off, we’ll touch on the many positives of colocation for modern organisations. Essentially, colocation facilities offer businesses the opportunity to store their hardware, servers and other computing equipment in a secure location with a reliable network infrastructure.
One of the most significant benefits of this is that you don’t need to rent and maintain your own data centre premises. Instead, you’ll pay a small fee to house your hardware, which also covers the cost of 24/7 security and privacy measures, cooling, power, electricity and high-speed connectivity. The cost of these expenses is shared between yourself and the other businesses hosting their equipment within the data centre. This factor also makes the price much more cost-effective than setting up and maintaining your own business data centre, which might not be possible for smaller organisations or charities with limited funds.
In some cases, you’ll also get access to ongoing maintenance and support for your hardware, although this may not be offered by every provider. This factor makes colocation ideal for businesses requiring a high level of control over their IT equipment and configurations. In fact, one of the main reasons colocation was originally implemented was to tackle issues such as delays in hardware supply chains and businesses having difficulties accessing their own data centre facilities, showing just how important colocation services can be.
Colocation providers may even offer you the ability to rent additional rooms to house your equipment, offering a level of scalability that extends to the limit of the data centre outlet infrastructure. This scalability and flexibility is another major benefit of managed colocation, meaning that businesses can meet increasing demands without committing to hefty infrastructure purchases themselves.
You’ll also usually get uptime guarantees as part of your dedicated resources, with robust cyber and physical security protocols (such as biometric access and surveillance). These factors ensure you’ll always get optimal performance, which can be critical for organisations offering a 24/7 service.
The Drawbacks of Colocation
However, whilst colocation is an important service for modern businesses, there are some negatives to using this form of data centre infrastructure. For one, you’re highly dependent on your colocation provider for physical access to your servers, and they may have strict opening hours or even require prior scheduling in some situations. This can be rather inconvenient in emergencies or if an upgrade is needed urgently, unlike building your own data centre which you can access at any time.
You’ll also have to pay an initial setup cost, as well as the ongoing expenses associated with hiring a data centre. However, your fees are shared with the other businesses using the data centre infrastructure, so it’s often cheaper than setting up your own private data centre for your organisation. You may also face geological constraints as well – if your chosen facility is located in an area far away from your headquarters, maintaining your equipment may be difficult. This problem can be solved easily by investing in a data centre near your business premises, but you might still experience higher latency if your chosen facility is located further away from your end users.
However, these are just minor points that can easily be resolved with some thought, so we still highly recommend using colocation services to store your hardware and computing equipment.
The Positives of Cloud Services
The cloud also offers several major benefits for modern businesses and organisations, providing unparalleled flexibility and scalability for all.
Traditional network infrastructure setups typically require physical servers, whereas using the cloud allows companies to adjust their resources on demand, making for a much more efficient setup overall. This is particularly beneficial for businesses with fluctuating workloads or seasonal demand, such as retail companies expecting big market changes during the Christmas period and Black Friday.
You’ll also likely save money when using the cloud, with these tangible cost savings being yet another tangible advantage. Most businesses operate on a pay-as-you-go model when using a cloud provider, which reduces the need for upfront hardware investments, which can be rather costly.
Your cloud provider should also handle the following things for you:
- Maintenance
- Software updates
- Security patches
For example, at M247 we offer 24/7 support for all our clients around the clock, meaning we’ll always be one step ahead of any potential security issues if they arise.
Not only does this reduce the burden on your in-house IT team, but it also means you don’t need to spend as much money covering these aspects. Another positive way of using the cloud is the fact that it’s accessible around the globe, meaning your teams should have no issues with accessing data and applications from anywhere with a stable internet connection. This is particularly important nowadays as more and more businesses are employing remote workers, enhancing collaboration along the way.
Additionally, you’ll get a range of robust security measures from your cloud provider, including encryption, compliance certifications and intrusion detection, ensuring both your data and users are always protected.
The Drawbacks of Cloud Services
It’s clear to see that the cloud has many benefits. However, there are also some potential drawbacks that may make colocation seem like a more suitable option for your needs.
One thing to consider is that the cloud is highly dependent on having a stable and fast internet connection – if you don’t have one, accessing your cloud resources can be difficult, which may lead to a drop in efficiency and productivity. However, this issue can be mitigated by sourcing a dedicated internet connection or a leased line for your business.
Whilst most cloud providers will mitigate the risk of threat actors and security breaches, concerns may still exist in this area. You will still need to ensure that your organisation complies with modern data privacy regulations and guards against potential security breaches – this is of particular importance if you have sensitive data stored in the cloud.
Another thing to consider is the cost of using the cloud. In most cases, you’ll pay on a pay-as-you-go model, which may seem attractive at first. However, if you experience unexpected spikes in usage or need to scale quickly, your bills can add up to a lot more than originally expected. It’s unlikely, but over time these costs can surpass the expenses of traditional network infrastructure, so it’s something that businesses with consistent workloads must keep an eye on.
Finally, you also need to consider the migration process, as migrating to the cloud can be extremely complex. You’ll need to allow a significant time period to transfer existing data and applications – you’ll also need to ensure your team has the expertise to migrate everything across. Depending on how long the migration period takes, it could also result in significant downtime for your business, which may cut your efficiency and productivity. You may find that older systems are not compatible with the cloud too, although this is unlikely for modern organisations.
Which Option Is Most Suitable for My Business?
Choosing between the cloud and colocation can be a difficult choice as both options have a huge range of advantages, so it’s important to do your research first and see how each solution would work with your own business.
You may even find that integrating both services into your business operations can help, so you don’t necessarily need to choose one solution or the other.
Cost Considerations
One thing you should do when making your decision is to compare the amount of money you would save when using both colocation and the cloud. Testing both solutions like this may make it easier for you to discover the benefits of each option, giving you the tools to determine which service to go for. You may even find that it’s more cost-effective to use both the cloud and colocation simultaneously, which means it might be worthwhile for you to rent data storage space both physically and virtually in the long term.
So how do the costs of colocation and the cloud weigh up against each other?
Technically, private cloud computing typically has a lower entry cost for organisations wanting to expand their resources. It’s also important to point out that using a cloud provider can offer a higher level of performance and reliability (as your resources are not shared with other businesses, unlike with colocation), which may improve efficiency and ultimately, your profits and turnover.
However, colocation can be more expensive than using a private cloud provider, but it’s usually much cheaper than hosting and maintaining your own data centre. This is because the resources in the data centre (such as cooling, power and security) are shared between multiple businesses and organisations, which is much more cost-effective than paying for it all yourself. Even if you can hire your own private data centre for your business operations, the cost of cooling, power and 24/7 security can be extremely high, unless these resources are split between yourself and other companies.
Security and Compliance
Another major factor to take into consideration is cyber security and compliance. It’s important to ensure that you always meet modern compliance protocols, as well as ensure that your security is up to date, as the consequences of not doing this could be huge.
One of the main limitations of using an external IT infrastructure or data centre is that you have less control over the security and privacy measures involved. This is likely to be less of an issue with colocation, as any decent data centre should have both physical and virtual security. Your cloud provider should also have high-tech security protocols built into their network infrastructure, but your business may still be responsible for managing your software, even when it’s deployed on the infrastructure hosted by your cloud service provider.
In actuality, this means that colocation can work very well when deployed alongside the cloud. This is because your hardware will be located in a hosted environment that can guarantee the physical security and virtual support needed to keep your data and users safe.
This means that your decision should not necessarily be about colocation vs cloud – instead, it should be based on how both of these technological services can be utilised together for increased effectiveness and business security.
Colocation or Cloud: Making the Right Decision for Your Business
Hopefully by reading through this page, the question of ‘colocation vs cloud?’ should have been answered sufficiently for you. There’s no one-size-fits-all solution, as each option has its own set of varying strengths and weaknesses, suiting different business needs.
Colocation is ideal for companies seeking greater control over their network infrastructure and hardware, whereas the cloud is perfect for businesses that prioritise flexibility and scalability, without having to bother with managing physical assets.
Ultimately, the decision depends on factors like your current and predicted budget, your workload requirements, and the long-term goals of your business. In some cases, you may even find that a hybrid approach that combines both solutions works wonders for your company.
If you’d like to find out more about M247’s range of colocation and cloud services, we’ll be happy to help – please get in touch for more information.
