Posted on May 5th, 2010While colocation hosting may seem like an excellent idea and be the perfect fit for a business, this is not always the case. Colocation offers many benefits to those looking for a low maintenance hosting solution. Unfortunately, there are also a few downsides to this hosting option that consumers should be aware of before jumping in.
The five most important weaknesses of colocation hosting include:
- Variance in monthly expenses
- Colocation hosting may be more expensive than managed hosting
- Limited physical access to equipment
- Difficult to find convenient colocation centers
- Relocating the business can be a hosting hassle
The first disadvantage of colocation hosting is the variance in monthly expenses. Any spike in traffic or a large influx of users could result in a serious increase in monthly costs. The hosting provider would charge a pretty penny for excessive bandwidth usage.
Another shortcoming is colocation hosting may be more expensive than a consumer would find at a managed hosting provider. Unfortunately the semantics in colocation hosting require the consumer to provide their own equipment (either leased or purchased) and either hire a networking team to maintain the servers or pay the colocation center to care for them.
Furthermore, networking professionals within the consumer’s company will have limited access to the servers. This is due to the amount of travel time involved with traveling back and forth to the center. Also, the networking professionals are at the mercy of the colocation center’s service hours.
An additional weakness is that it’s often difficult to find convenient colocations if not near a major city. Most colocation centers are found near major network hubs which are only close to large cities. Relating back to the previous disadvantage, if the center isn’t close, it wastes a good deal of time for the networking staff to travel to the site.
The final disadvantage occurs when a company needs to relocate their whole business to another location; it’s difficult to move all the equipment and find another colocation center, especially if the relocation is out of a major city. This is primarily due to the travel time and the chore of moving the equipment. In this situation it might be best to opt to have the colocation center maintain the systems.
There are a few significant reasons that colocation hosting is not a viable option for every business. If these weaknesses of colocation are not an issue, then there are plenty of advantages to make this type of hosting a practical choice.