Is Colocation back in fashion?

By Terry Storrar, managing director, Leaseweb UK

Colocation has long been recognised as a logical choice for businesses to rent space, power, cooling and connectivity for their hardware, most often at a data centre site. This avoids the costs and management demands of on-premises upkeep and also allows any business to easily tap into professional data centre facilities for their IT requirements.

In today’s digital world, the pros and cons of many newer IT concepts have been at the forefront of discussion in recent years; for example, the role of cloud and hybrid infrastructures. As such, there has been less acknowledgement of colocation’s benefits. But, once again, this dependable, common sense IT choice has been thrown back on stage as more companies are recognising the role it plays in supporting the growing high computing demands of AI and edge computing. The global colocation market is predicted to grow at a CAGR of 14.5% between 2024 and 2032.

With colocation combining effectively with agile cloud services, it is a solid choice that businesses should not immediately dismiss.

Benefitting from data centre expertise

Organisations can benefit in a number of ways by choosing colocation for their IT equipment, rather than managing this on their own premises. Not only do businesses avoid the costs of running their own data centre and equipment, but they can rely on a third-party service provider whose focus it is to supply power, cooling and connectivity to keep servers and other hardware running effectively.

There are other advantages too. Data centre providers offer 24/7 on-site support, backup services, and reliable bandwidth – all of which are essential for maintaining business performance. And, with businesses focused on sustainability goals, colocating with a service provider means that they can tap into the huge investments that data centre operators are making into going green rather than having to budget for this on their own. For example, data centre operators are heavily focused on 100% renewable energy use and are striving to achieve various regulatory requirements to be carbon neutral by introducing energy-efficient systems.

Using colocation means that the individual business benefits from these economies of scale afforded by data centre experts and does not have the burden of complying with current and future regulatory environmental standards that will only become tougher in the coming years.

Colocation also helps to bolster security. While this does not prevent companies from their own IT security provision, all data centres need to provide industry-standard physical and network security, as well as redundancy for customers’ IT infrastructures. There is also on-site security to consider such as surveillance, access management, fire detection and backup power.

Importantly, colocation gives organisations boundless flexibility for managing IT infrastructure, even for cloud integration. With the increasing popularity of AI, it is particularly crucial for companies to be able to combine the agility of the cloud with the ability to scale infrastructure up and down to meet business demands.

Matching colocation provision to practical business need

In evaluating potential colocation options, it is important that businesses understand the different propositions of service providers.

Power is a key factor when choosing a colocation provider. Businesses likely to need scale and power to satisfy high-compute demand need to look at whether a provider has multiple power sources to cope in the event of an outage and to eliminate the risk of downtime. Modern data centres offer redundant power sources and contingency backup to optimise workload uptime and it is important to look at what provision is in place for these.

On a practical note, a data centre building needs to be compatible with business operations. The right provider should be able to accommodate existing IT hardware set-up, including server racks and cages, power and cooling requirements, with enough capacity for the future. A provider should also meet a company’s network protocols and standards for smooth integration with existing services and solutions.

The physical location of a data centre could also be a factor affecting a decision if staff need to be able to travel to and from the site easily. This will not impact some businesses that want to use the data centre’s resources fully, but if a company wants to have technicians on-site full or part-time, then convenience is key. Many providers now offer ‘remote hands’ experts which eliminate the need for regular access to a centre – in fact, businesses can colocate their equipment a long way from the office and still operate IT effectively.

Colocation’s role in supporting AI

Today’s IT professionals need to put in place adaptable infrastructures, and most often need services that are fast, flexible, scalable and secure. Colocation is both a solid choice in its own right and also helps to enhance today’s cloud infrastructures which might struggle to meet all the demands of tomorrow’s AI computing requirements. Although every business has its own requirements, global colocation providers can quickly match the growth and trajectory of modern AI business without the capital outlay so it is an option that should not be downplayed.

Is Colocation back in fashion?

Is Colocation back in fashion?

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