The 7 Business Benefits of Colocation Services

While some businesses operate entirely in the cloud, some still have IT infrastructure they need to house. Others are moving from solely cloud environments to a colocation model.

From air conditioning systems to networking facilities, there is a lot that goes into looking after IT infrastructure. What’s more, all of this requires significant levels of capital investment and ongoing operating expense – the latter of which increases sharply when those systems become large or business-critical.

For many organisations, housing their IT or operating entirely in the cloud is simply not cost-effective. Many are migrating to colocation due to cost savings, flexibility, security and 24/7 support.

In this article, we break down seven business benefits of colocation services, including cost, security and flexibility.

If you want to learn more, head over to our colocation page or get in touch with our team for a free quotation.

What is colocation?

Before we jump into the business benefits of colocation services, let’s very quickly summarise what this entails.

Colocation involves housing your IT hardware in a purpose-built data centre owned and operated by a trusted partner, such as Pulsant. With our colocation service, you simply move your equipment into our data centre. This removes the need, expense and risk of housing the infrastructure on your premises or solely in the cloud.

Read our in-depth guide to colocation for more information.

The advantages of colocation

Here are seven ways a colocation service can benefit your business.

1) Colocation is more cost-effective

For many businesses, paying for the upkeep of hardware and IT infrastructure can be astronomical. If you’re looking to grow soon, you’ll need a flexible colocation plan that takes away the burden of having to house expensive equipment. Thus, rather than allotting a significant long-term capital investment to running an in-house data centre or having your IT infrastructure entirely in the cloud, a colocation provider will give you the necessary capacity at a snip of the price.

At Pulsant, we reduce business costs by taking care of the following:

• Power
• Cooling
• Space
• Humidity control
• Physical security
• Ongoing maintenance

We house multiple clients in the same facility. In doing so, you benefit from high service levels at a reduced overall operational cost. For example, we provide cooling at scale to multiple clients and can therefore pass down cost savings to each client. As your IT requirements grow, your Pulsant data centre footprint scales accordingly.

Find out more about the costs and returns associated with colocation here.

2) Enhanced reliability and reduced downtime

One key benefit of colocation is improved reliability. Power outages and loss of network connectivity are major disruptors to IT operations. And in business-critical or client-facing IT systems, any downtime could result in the loss of business or reputation.

While there are steps you can take to limit downtime for systems on your premises, these are often limited in a non-dedicated environment, such as an ordinary office. By contrast, our data centres are designed from the ground up to offer:

• Multiple redundant cooling systems.
• Power feeds backed up by high capacity.
• Enterprise-class Uninterruptable Power Supply (UPS) systems.
• On-site back-up generators.
• Multiple network connections that take services from several telecommunications carriers to minimise the risk of communication outages.

We own and manage the entire environment that houses your servers – all the way down to the essential components. This provides us with clear visibility of any issues affecting your colocated servers and speeds up resolution times.

3) Increased security, data protection and compliance

Pulsant’s ISO 27001 accreditation for IT security covers all of our 12 data centres. This certificate means your systems will be protected by multiple levels of access control, internal/external CCTV, steel perimeter fencing, on-site staff, and more.

We also offer a range of optional services to support your colocated IT. Although your engineers will have full access to your equipment, our expert data centre staff can perform many maintenance tasks for you. We call this “remote hands”, where our engineers carry out essential maintenance, repairs, or upgrades to your colocated equipment.

We complement our colocation services with a flexible and cost-effective range of network connectivity services. These keep you and your customers connected to your colocated IT.

4) Flexible scalability

If your company is growing, you’ll need a solution that accommodates any expanding IT infrastructure. Likewise, if there are periods of the year that are busier than others, perhaps due to seasonality, you’ll want the flexibility to scale resources up and down. In either of these situations, having a small in-house data room isn’t reliable or cost-effective.

Scalable hosting, however, gives you the freedom to increase bandwidth and storage capacity in tandem with your growth. It also means that you don’t have to buy expensive hardware or recruit extra IT professionals, only to be left with unutilised resources if demand decreases.

Hybrid cloud solutions offer an ideal answer to this challenge. By seamlessly integrating both on-premises infrastructure and cloud resources, they provide unmatched flexibility in managing your company's IT demands. In times of rapid expansion, you can easily tap into virtually limitless cloud resources, allowing for agile scaling that keeps pace with your growth without the need for significant capital investments in on-site equipment. Moreover, during those seasonally busy periods, the hybrid cloud enables you to swiftly adjust your computing and storage resources to meet the heightened demands, and then scale them back down when the demand subsides. This efficient and cost-effective approach ensures that you only pay for the resources you actually use, making it a highly adaptable solution for businesses of all sizes.

A flexible colocation plan will allow you to deal with peaks in demand by distributing traffic across multiple servers. In doing so, we keep bandwidth costs to a minimum and reduce downtime. Got a new app that you’re looking to launch? Simply let our team know, and we’ll allocate more rack support. There’s no need to invest in extra on-site infrastructure.

5) Access to advanced infrastructure and support

One of the most significant advantages of colocation services lies in the unparalleled access it provides to state-of-the-art data centre infrastructure and technologies. Our data centres are purpose-built with cutting-edge hardware and advanced equipment, offering a level of performance and reliability that would be challenging to achieve through on-premises solutions.

We invest heavily in our data centre facilities to ensure they meet the demanding requirements of modern businesses. This includes high-capacity power systems, redundant and scalable cooling solutions, and cutting-edge networking infrastructure. These components are designed to support the complex and resource-intensive workloads of your organisation, allowing you to thrive in a digital landscape where speed, efficiency, and scalability are critical.

Additionally, Pulsant data centres incorporate the latest advancements in hardware, such as high-performance servers, storage arrays, and networking switches. By colocating your IT assets in such facilities, you gain access to top-tier equipment without having to make significant capital investments.

6) 24/7 IT support

Prolonged downtime can be catastrophic for businesses that rely on the internet. As such, it’s best to have your infrastructure in the hands of an experienced service provider, who will dedicate time to monitor performance and prevent potential disasters.

By colocating your infrastructure with Pulsant, you’ll receive round-the-clock support and a team on-hand to help. Let the pros take care of your data, and free up any internal IT resources for day-to-day tasks.

7) Geographic redundancy and business continuity

Geographic redundancy is a fundamental aspect of colocation services and plays a crucial role in ensuring business continuity and disaster recovery preparedness. With the increasing reliance on digital operations, you’ll be all too aware that you must safeguard your critical data and applications against potential disruptions.

Colocation offers robust solutions to address these concerns, enhancing resilience and maintaining seamless operations, even in the face of unexpected events.

This is advantageous for a number of reasons:

• Risk Mitigation: By colocating IT infrastructure in geographically diverse data centre locations, businesses reduce the risk of a single point of failure. In the event of a natural disaster, power outage, or other regional disruptions, the geographic redundancy ensures that operations can be swiftly and seamlessly transferred to an alternate location, minimising downtime and data loss.
• Enhanced Reliability: Geographic redundancy spreads critical infrastructure across multiple locations, ensuring that services remain available and responsive. This redundancy guarantees that customers and stakeholders can access vital applications and data with minimal interruption, bolstering customer trust and loyalty.
• Disaster Recovery Planning: Your colocation provider should collaborate with you to develop comprehensive disaster recovery plans tailored to your specific needs. These plans outline detailed procedures and failover mechanisms for swiftly recovering data and applications in the event of a disaster, supporting a rapid return to normal operations.
• Regulatory Compliance: In certain industries, regulatory authorities mandate the implementation of disaster recovery and business continuity measures. Geographic redundancy in colocation environments ensures compliance with these requirements, helping your business avoid potential penalties and legal issues.