As a business grows, it’s important to consider a data center business plan that grows and changes with its current IT infrastructure needs. Even more important is a plan for future growth. Sometimes, that plan for growth means outsourcing the infrastructure to a colocation facility. Others aren’t sure if a data center relocation is the best solution for their needs.

But what is colocation? Essentially, it is the renting of space from a data center provider to house your physical servers and network hardware. Another added benefit are on-site IT support options, like remote hands. If your business hasn’t explored the possibility of colocation, it’s worth investigating. There are numerous benefits to making the switch.

Colocation Cost Savings

Colocation lets businesses skip the initial investment that comes with building their own facility. That overall cost is “shared” by the other organizations that are in the same data center facility. In addition to skipping the initial investment cost, there is a substantial and ongoing cost savings, as your overall costs continue to be shared by other enterprises. 

Small businesses easily gain the same advantage of a larger IT department without the added expense. Medium to large enterprises can expand capacity without the cost of additional construction.

Reliability, Uptime, and Redundancy

Businesses can’t worry about downtime and the loss of income that comes with it. Colocation facilities have all of the resources to combat it. This includes diversified power sources, cooling options, physical security, backup systems, and more. These backups all work together to minimize downtime and make sure that everything is working as it should.

Colocation Compliance and Security

In addition to 24/7/365 monitoring, colocation data centers have excellent security. These facilities have the most up-to-date security protocols in place to protect physical infrastructure as well as your company’s data. For physical security, you can expect access cards, 24/7 camera monitoring, fire detection, and more. Cybersecurity protocols include next generation firewalls as well as backup services. Colocation facilities can play a large role in your company’s disaster recovery plan.

Scalability and Flexibility

As your infrastructure grows, colocating provides the flexibility to shift to higher levels of bandwidth to accommodate traffic without making additional investments. This also removes the need to plan ahead and ensures you only pay for what you use. As data spikes are shared across multiple colocation “tenants,” bandwidth costs are much lower.

Colocating allows businesses to focus on revenue instead of managing an on-site data center. It also still allows full control over your own server. Often, colocation is also a step towards migrating your data to the cloud. Finding the right colocation facility can be one of the best, and smartest, investments a company can make. Check out 165 Halsey for the next step in colocation.