Tri-net Solutions provides Colocation services (sometimes abbreviated as ‘Colo’) to customers who need professional-grade solutions for web developers, database managers, and customers needing large amounts of dedicated disk space.
While our service page gives a good overview of the technical details of colocation services, we also wanted to highlight three of the benefits of collocating your servers.
ENVIRONMENTAL CONDITIONS
Power. The cost of installing and maintaining your own back-up power system may be too expensive for a single company to finance. One of the advantages of using colocation services is that the the cost and labor involved in implementing and maintaining your own back-up power system is negated.
USA Today reports in its article, “Household electricity bills skyrocket“, that electricity bills have soared over the last five years. When you run your own servers at your location, you have to factor the cost of the power needed to run the server, any backup/battery systems, climate control as well as any additional monitoring systems needed. The electricity bill savings gained by collocating your servers just might justify the service costs of colocation.
Cooling and Fire Suppression. Cooling and fire control are also important issues consider. The colocation facility features climate control (24/7 air conditioning). and waterless fire suppression systems. These systems may, again, be expensive to install, maintain, and repair, and many companies forgo implementation of these systems to avoid the expense; the infamous “computer closet” of many small businesses hosting their own mail and file servers are a good example of this.
PHYSICAL SECURITY
Access Control. While a locked door might deter the casual mischief maker from gaining access to servers collocated locally, a motivated individual with criminal intent could easily slip past the lock and gain access to all of the machines and the data contained on them.
What you need is a more robust access control, physical security system. A colocation facility features access control systems for both entry into the facility as well as access to the rack containing your equipment. A surveillance system keeps constant watch over activities in the colocation facility.
BETTER BANDWIDTH
Bandwidth. At an office, it’s difficult to get, or justify the costs for getting 1 Gb bandwidth. Because of the high volume of data being transmitted to and from the colocation facility, it’s much more feasible for both Internet service providers, as well as customers, to utilize colocation facilities when deploying high bandwidth lines. Colocation customers gain the advantages of this higher bandwidth for a fraction of the cost it would be to maintain it on their own.
