Colocation vs cloud hosting: main differences and advantages

Not every organization has the expertise and resources to build its own data center and install server equipment on premise.

As a result, many companies prefer outsourcing and alternative solutions for hosting their IT infrastructure and online resources. The most common options are colocation and cloud hosting in commercial data centers. Each of these approaches has its unique characteristics, advantages, and disadvantages. Therefore, potential clients often wonder: which should they choose—colocation or cloud hosting?

Colocation is a service that allows customers to place their IT equipment in a commercial data center and connect it to high-speed fiber channels.

The owner of the IT infrastructure rents a rack cabinet and installs its infrastructure in the data hall in full compliance with the corporate policies and goals. This is particularly important for companies handling sensitive data. The data center provides a high level of security: duty shift engineers monitor temperature conditions around the clock, restrict access to servers, and control power supply. Typically, data centers offer several pricing tiers, allowing the server owners to choose the option that best suits their needs.

Colocation in Moscow or any other city is a whole complex of services, which has indisputable advantages.

Full control over the IT equipment

Representatives of the company that owns the servers can access the data center at any time, check the servers’ performance and configure them as needed. Data center employees do not interfere with the settings, their mission is to create environment for uninterruptable operation of the customer’s equipment. Outsiders cannot access the servers either.

Data security

The information stored in the data center providing Colocation services is available only to the owner of server Infrastructure.

Leakage of valuable data and unauthorized access to it by the data center are excluded.

Reducing the risk of network problems

If there are network or hardware problems, representatives of the company that owns the servers can easily access the equipment remotely or travel to the site. IT managers can quickly figure out what’s going on and get the website or other resources back up and running as usual.

Cloud hosting fundamentally differs from colocation. In this case, the owner of a website or other digital product hosts it on the remote servers owned by a cloud provider.

There are three main types of cloud hosting:

• public – the resources are provided to various customers, who host their websites and applications on the shared cloud platform;
• private – the cloud platform is dedicated and used only by one user company; this option is especially attractive from a security point of view, since only one enterprise has access to the resources and utilizes at 100% all the available computing resources and the entire amount of storage;
• hybrid – this option combines the features of private and public hosting: for example, there is one key account and few others that use strictly limited computing resources.

Benefits of cloud hosting

Cloud hosting also has undeniable advantages. That is why many companies prefer this option.

Flexibility and scalability

Cloud hosting offers flexibility and scalability. Companies can easily manage the amount of resources according to their needs, allowing effectively control costs and respond quickly to changes on the market. If a user needs to get additional computing resources or reduce the amount of memory in use, this can be done very easily – just change the relevant settings using an intuitive interface. This is why cloud hosting is often chosen by startups or companies for whom variable or increasing loads are the norm.

High level of availability and reliability.

Cloud hosting provides a high level of availability and reliability. Cloud service providers often offer data backup and automatic disaster recovery options, which significantly reduce risks of data loss. Thanks to the distributed architecture, cloud solutions guarantee uninterrupted operation even in the event of technical errors on one of the servers, which is critically important for a business that depends on constant access to its data and applications.

Savings and cost reduction.

Finally, using cloud hosting can significantly reduce IT infrastructure costs. Companies eliminate the need to invest in expensive hardware and maintenance. Instead, the cloud service allows pay-as-you go format, where resources are paid per the actual amount used. This helps to optimize customer’s budget and redirect funds to other key aspects of the business. Finally, cloud solutions often include software upgrades and security features, which also reduce additional IT management costs.

So, cloud hosting and server colocation are the services, that are significantly differ from each other.

Infrastructure control

The fundamental difference that immediately catches the eye when the question “colocation vs cloud hosting” arises is as follows:

• when ordering Colocation services in Moscow or any other data center, the company installs its own servers in the data center and has access to it at the physical level;
• when using cloud hosting, the infrastructure of the cloud provider is used, and the customer can manage his website via remote tools and virtualized resources.

Setting up and configuring servers

When colocating servers, the owner gets more opportunities to change settings. In fact, he can set all the parameters the way he needs.

Cloud hosting usually does not provide such an opportunity. Hosting owners set restrictions on changing the settings. Settings can be defined and configured by the customer only when using a private cloud.

Colocation is the preferred choice for companies that set advanced data security requirements and strive for comprehensive control. Colocation provides the ability to control the servers at the physical level. This may be especially important for industry players with a high level of regulation and the need to strictly comply with regulatory requirements. At the same time, such an organization should employ professional staff to operate servers.

Cloud hosting is a good option for organizations with growing or variable workload who want to keep flexibility and scalability of services. It also provides a simpler and less fault-prone environment, which is convenient for companies with small experience in managing their own infrastructure. Basic cloud hosting rates are affordable to small businesses and startups that are not ready to invest heavily in infrastructure. Many issues that they will not be able to handle on their own will be easily solved by the duty shift of the cloud hosting provider.

In any case, it is necessary to pay attention to the quality of services provided by the data center and cloud hosting. For example, data centers are certified in accordance with provided level of reliability (Tier|Class|Level) and industry parameters, more details can be read here.

When choosing between colocation and cloud hosting, it is needed to consider:

• the needs;
• budget;
• the strategic goals.

The decision made should correspond to organization’s tasks, contribute to the growth and business development.