Organizations in today’s avant-garde IT world have many competitive options around offloading the loads associated with IT infrastructure management and space. Colocation and Cloud-based hosting are 2 such scenarios service providers advocate organizations to adopt. In this blog we will discuss colocation vs cloud in detail.
What is Colocation?
Colocation term refers to when a customer takes rent basic facilities from the provider but keepings its own server equipment.
The facility, power, cooling, communications and data center floor space with is provided by Service provider which may be shared with other customers.
The customer needs to have its own server, storage and network devices and needs to manage/maintain on its own. The Colocation service provider will also provide physical security of the customer devices installed.
Related- Data Center vs Cloud
What is Cloud?
Cloud Service providers stretch a step beyond just providing space and facilities. Not only provides hardware infrastructure (Servers, storage, backup, network and security elements) but also maintains them providing the customers with a full package of services.
Related- Cloud Computing
The customer is offloaded from day 2 day administrative and operational work of maintaining and troubleshooting the applications on Cloud.
Related- Top 10 Cloud Migration Tool
In some scenarios, Colocation is preferred approach like when security compliance requirements are stringent (PCI- DSS etc.). Additionally, colocation allows the customer to decide upon the server machines hardware and software choose from and maybe select best in breed hardware/software from multiple vendors.
This freedom to install any software and application may be limited in the case of Cloud-based service providers.
Some of the major benefits from Cloud-hosted solutions include very fast provisioning, scalability, lower TCO than Colocation. You can learn more about cloud vs colocation with Macquarie Data Centres in-depth guide.
Colocation vs Cloud: Comparison Table
Below tables compares Colocation based setups and Cloud-based hosted solutions –
Related- Why Customers Are Moving To The Cloud?
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
I am here to share my knowledge and experience in the field of networking with the goal being – “The more you share, the more you learn.”
I am a biotechnologist by qualification and a Network Enthusiast by interest. I developed interest in networking being in the company of a passionate Network Professional, my husband.
I am a strong believer of the fact that “learning is a constant process of discovering yourself.”
– Rashmi Bhardwaj (Author/Editor)
