Alternatives for housing data are available to organizations through colocation and cloud services. Each service has its distinct advantages and disadvantages depending on their own needs. Colocation is the process of storing privately-owned servers and networking hardware in a third-party data center, like Electric Kitten, which offers colocation hosting in Los Angeles.
There is the option to “co-locate” equipment by renting space in a colocation data center, also known as a third-party data center, instead of the in-house scenario where servers reside within a room or a component of an organization’s own business infrastructure. Customers of colocation services could rent extra rooms to store their equipment and save money on electricity. Unlike colocation services, cloud services don’t have a physical location. Because of the virtual nature of their data centers, their clients are not required to store the hardware needed to run their servers.
The primary distinction between colocation and the public cloud is how data is managed and kept. The choice is between having tangible assets and virtual ones. Because they use shared facilities, cloud-based infrastructure services are less expensive than colocation. However, that is the only similarity between them. The cloud service provider manages your servers, storage, and network components when using cloud services.
These components are set up by the provider’s team, not your own, which lowers capital investment and operating expense costs. Businesses that choose colocation must set up their own servers, storage, and network components. The transfer will cost more money as a result, which is a drawback.
Since they prefer to use their data centers for more productive tasks related to business expansion, many companies are considering cloud-based services. Others choose a cloud provider because it allows them to quickly scale data capacity up or down in response to shifting business needs.