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A Number Of Different Forms Of Co-location Packages
In many cases, it is entirely practical to rent a dedicated server, or indeed a series of dedicated servers, depending on your requirements. Colocation can, depending on the situation save a business a lot of money, since with a dedicated server you are renting the hardware as well. Colocation means you pay for the hardware up front, but long term you save by just renting rackspace and bandwidth. So what different colo packages can you take up? We will examine them from the largest, to the smallest.
The top ‘colocation package’ you could pay for, would be a datacentre. With this, you would need a highly sophisticated team to manage power, bandwidth and cooling requirements- not forgetting security. Most businesses will rule this out due to the sheer cost and practicality. Datacentres range in from size from a dozen racks, to thousands of racks spread across multiple floors.
A lockable cage or suit might be considered if a datacentre is overkill. A cage or suite is a private enclosure in a datacentre where you host your own racks. The benefits of this is that you are separated from other customers racks.
If a lockable cage or suite is a bit over the top, then you can look at renting your own racks. A typical rack delivers 16 amps of power and 40U of space. Typically, within these confinements you would be able to host around 30 servers. Because of the green lobby concern for the environment and the every increasing cost of power, servers are becoming more and more power efficient. Racks are fully secured- locked back and front which gives piece of mind that you are isolated in your very own private space.
A full rack might not be the best bet if you are only hosting a few servers- and you might instead consider quarter or half lockable racks. Half and quarter lockable racks offers security at a fraction of the cost of a full rack. Quarter and half lockable racks often share the same power with other racks. For peace of mind, it is always worth having your own power feed.
For those with only a couple of servers, lockable racks might be a bit too much. Don’t fear- there is a colo package for you. You can rent rackspace for individual servers. From a 4U down to a 1U server, you have plenty of flexibility. Make sure with your colo provider, before you sign up that they allow unaccompanied access. Remember though, with a shared colocation package- the power and bandwidth is shared with other users.
As you can see, there is plenty of flexibility in collocation. Whatever your requirement- there should be a colo package to match.
For help with colo, please talk to CCS Leeds, who specialise in collocation.
