In many cases, it is entirely practical to rent a dedicated server, or indeed a series of dedicated servers, depending on your requirements. Co-location can on the other save businesses money due to the costs associated with renting the hardware. With colocation you offset a lot of the cost by purchasing the hardware up front, and then paying just for the rackspace and bandwidth you need. So what are the different types of collocation package available? We will look at the biggest packages, through to the smallest server co-location.
For Leeds colo, the absolute top ‘colocation package’, so to speak would be to rent a Leeds colo datacentre. With this, you would need a highly sophisticated team to manage power, bandwidth and cooling requirements- not forgetting security. Most businesses will rule this out due to the sheer cost and practicality. The size of a datacentre ranges anywhere from a few racks to thousands.
If you can’t quite afford the vast costs involved with an entire datacentre, you may wish to rent your own lockable cage, or suite. A cage or suit gives you your own private enclosure. The benefit of this is you are separated from other customer’s racks.
If a private cage is overkill, then individual racks might be considered. Normally a rack will be around 40U of space, and you will have up to 16 amps of power. You’ll normally fit around 30 servers in this rack. Servers are becoming more power efficient these days to to the rising power of costs and concerns about the environment. Racks are fully secured- locked back and front which gives piece of mind that you are isolated in your very own private space.
A full rack isn’t always practical- for this situation you have the option of quarter and half lockable racks. A half and quarter lockable rack gives the same level of security as a full rack for a lower cost. Often you can find lockable racks share the same power feed as full racks. For peace of mind, it is always worth having your own power feed.
For those with only a couple of servers, lockable racks might be a bit too much. Don’t fear- there is a colo package for you. Many companies will rent out proportions of a full rack allowing you to buy shared rackspace. You can host anything from a 1U through to a 4U server. Check before you sign up, to ensure your colo provider allows supervised access. Remember though, with a shared colocation package- the power and bandwidth is shared with other users.
The many different packages you have to choose from, make colo a very viable option. Whatever your requirement- there should be a colo package to match.
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