Colocation Server Hosting

Colocation sever hosting provides results that are similar to dedicated web hosting, but with one major difference.  In the case of collocation server hosting, the hosting company will provide the bandwidth, space and power for your server, but you have to provide the actual server equipment.  This means sending your server equipment to your web hosting company’s data center so that they can house and maintain it.  This is an essential and cost saving service for larger organizations like web commerce companies, major corporations, and telecommunication companies that need to use their own server equipment, but don’t want to set up their own dedicated data center.

• Colocation Hostgator.com Review
Company’s data center is at The Planet, located in Dallas, Texas, which boasts over 35,000 square feet of raised floor space, and features state-of-the-art everything.  Considered to be one of the safest and most reliable data centers in the US.

• Lunarpages.com Colocation Review
Their datacenter is located in Los Angeles, California, and supplies the highest level of security, safety, redundancy, reliability, scalability and technology.

• IxwebHosting.com Colocation Review
Privately-owned data center in located in Hopkinsville, Kentucky - prides itself on being hacker safe.

As larger organizations outgrow the benefits of virtual and dedicated hosting, more data centers are being built to house server equipment for multiple customers under one roof, thereby creating a cost effective yet powerful data center that no one company could afford on their own.  By colocating their equipment in a central location with other companies, users can enjoy enormously increased bandwidth, higher security, more dependable back up and twenty four hour equipment surveillance.  This trend has resulted in the construction of larger colocation facilities that range in size from 5,000 to 50,000 square feet.  Built on this kind of scale, these data centers provide powerful options that most companies can’t maintain on their own.

Physically speaking, a data center is an enormous warehouse-type of building with rows and rows of individual and secured areas that hold the physical servers of all the companies that operate out of that location.  The price for colocation will depend upon the amount of equipment you have and the security you need.  Most data centers offer the following types of space to house functioning computer equipment:  quarter, half and full server rack space, half and full server cabinet space, cages, custom cages, and build-to-suit secure space.  All machinery should be protected by a raised floor, air conditioning and heat, smoke detectors, separate power cables, electrical grounding, few windows, and physical security.  Emergency power is provided by diesel generators and sometimes battery backup systems.  Colocation facilities generally have multiple locations for cables to enter the building.  This provides the redundancy needed so that communications can continue if one bundle of cables is damaged.

Admittedly, you have to be a pretty big player to get a colocation spot at one of the following companies, but you can check them out for the types of security you should be looking for if you decide to choose colocation server hosting: Hostgator.com (recommended), Lunarpages.com, and IxwebHosting.com.

While you may not be large enough to need full colocation server hosting, if you still need more bandwidth and a separate full service hosting company, you can still take advantage of virtual hosting.  Virtualization is a more basic form of colocation where a host server provides a virtual hardware or software platform that is used for running one or more instances of software on the same platform.