How to choose the best colocation providers?

Whether you are looking for a smart disaster recovery planning or need to focus on some core competencies of your business, the decision of choosing colocation providers can significantly impact your business operations.  The reason is, colocation services can simply house your servers in a well-equipped facility powered by cooling, automatic power supply and physical protection from the harsh environment. Now when you compare the services with in-house colocation, you may find many drawbacks such as large capital costs, inefficient power supply, space issues, and downtime problems. To overcome these inefficiencies, Server colocation experts can help you manage your server intelligently by placing them in a large and centralized location. 

Let’s consider how to choose the best colocation providers based on these qualities.

Colocation providers: What is a colocation service?

Colocation providers or colocation service is responsible to house your servers in a completely organized and well-managed facility. Your servers would be placed in automatic power racks or cabinets according to your business needs. The place that houses your servers is called a data center and the overall process of housing the server in a data center is called server colocation.

Power- the most important element offered by colocation providers

Power is the most significant element that should be acknowledged by all the business owners before co-locating their servers. That is not only about looking for a big number.

Power simply works a lot in the server colocation costs in different ways. If you are a large-scale company, you may be able to invest more according to your reputation. Some companies prefer to buy metered power, which is the total amount of power you have been using. Many companies tend to buy power in different units, either the kilowatt, kilovolt amp or the circulated one.

However, it’s not important how you choose the power unit. The essential thing is to ensure that you are getting the required power for your server. Many services also provide circuited power, but they only let you utilize a few percentages of it, because if they offer the full amount, it may violate the building as well as break the electrical codes. That's why it's important to choose the best colocation hosting providers that can help you understand such technical elements in complete details. 

The environment of the colocation facility:

If you are planning to co-locate your servers, keep in mind that you have to pay cooling charges. The reason is, your server racks need some specific amount of cooling so they can run smoothly and efficiently. Servers generate plenty of heat, which always needs to be sucked out carefully and then replaced with fresh air to save the machinery from overheating. There is also a danger of power outages, earthquakes, flood or other uncertain happenings. Even sometimes, a small mouse proves to be catastrophic when it’s unleashed on the wrong wires.

So if you are considering data center providers for your company, make sure their infrastructure is advanced and monitored so they can serve best according to your needs.

Uptime of the colocation data center:

After power and infrastructure management solutions, uptime seems to be the next critical factor for most of the business owners. Many unprofessional services keep the numbers purposely high so you can trust them in the long run. 

For example, many inefficient services provide plan downtime for regular maintenance and other issues. However, they will never tell you beforehand, instead, they will cover the flaw by saying it's a natural thing and every data center needs to run maintenance, and as a result, you can't be able to access your important files and information for an unlimited time.

Keep in mind, the best and the cheapest colocation services promise to offer 100% uptime in their service level agreement. If they are not offering 100%, then go for the company that offers at least 99.9% uptime. The benefit of choosing such a facility is, you will be able to run your operations 24 hours without experiencing any downtime issues.

Network support in colo facilities:

Network support is another important factor that should be taken seriously by business owners. Without the guarantees of efficient network support, you should never be judging the hosting companies regardless of the colocation data center pricing mentioned in their plans which states that most of our features are free. Moreover, when you enter their system, you will find that there is nothing free, and now you have to pay charges for all the features that you are not even using. That’s the reason, choosing strong network solutions can have a lot of good impacts on your business, as it will promise more efficiency and stability in the long run.

Strong customer support:

The point of choosing a reliable colocation provider is that whenever you are stuck in a difficult situation and couldn't fix the error yourself, then you can approach the professionals and they guarantee efficient assistance 24 hours. But when your colocation providers are not available at 2 am and all you need to wait for the morning and their regular business hours, then you are simply wasting your time and money. The best services provide 24 hours support through multiple contact mediums, you can send them an email, approach them through live chat or call them on their contact number. This is how they work and maintain the trust and confidence of their potential customers.

Why have a colocation data center?

It’s so tempting to choose the right colocation providers for your business needs. Because it’s a long term, investment and you have to take care of hundreds of elements that make or break the reputation of your business. 

So if you are planning to choose the best colocation facility, it's recommended considering the above-mentioned points carefully so you can make wise decisions and take your business to the next level. Server colocation experts can also help you make the best decision for your company, if you are confused about something, visit the official website and approach the experts for more assistance.

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