What Are The Biggest Colocation & Hybrid Cloud Hurdles

There is no doubt co-location data centers are on the rise, but they do come with some challenges. As more and more business clients are looking into hybrid cloud services in order to release their own latest services or applications, and disaster recovery is at the forefront of everyone’s mind. Business owners are getting reminded once again that disasters—natural or manmade—can happen to anyone.

That includes the data center they depend upon for security and uptime. For most companies building their own data center is an incredibly costly investment that just does not make sense. Co-location is the natural choice, which is when businesses rely on external IT services and resources.

Although this is a natural choice it is not an easy one. There are plenty of colocation service providers and before deciding, companies are forced to do extensive research.

One of the first thing to consider is if the co-location data center is a cloud impediment or cloud-enabling. Co-location is usually just a first step in building a hybrid cloud environment, and the chosen colocation partner can both hold you back or bolster your architecture and cloud options.

There are also different kinds of colocation features, and companies need to decide on their own which are best for their business. A reputable co-location provider will provide assistance and advice in finding the ones that will suit you best.

The best way to start is with documentation, to map your existing SaaS, enterprise cloud strategies, IaaS. It would be a good idea to write down your cloud requirements and compare them to what each potential the colocation provider is capable of offering.

Build Your Pro & Con List

When you are done with listing your goals it would be wise to compare them with offering of your potential colocation providers until you find the one that matches them perfectly. If you do not do this you could be facing “stranded” applications and will ultimately waste a lot of time and money.

Therefore the time you invest in mapping out what you need and what is available is a well worthy investment. Keep in mind that there are various types of colocation contracts available, however they are usually between three and five years. Thus you need to make sure that you do not end up signing the one that does not work for you as it can lead to expensive and extensive consequences.

On the other hand a contract with the right co-location provider is a true business advantage. Co-location is much more than securing the best servers, scalability is the other advantage.

For those that wish to capture their unstructured data, analyze and utilize it to improve customer engagement in a mix of cloud computing, on premises and storage solutions are recommended. Advantages of this hybrid environment is well known to IT experts. However many of them are still wary of WAN connections and potential host diverse network interoperability that might pop up with hybrid IT strategy angles. Everyone needs a safe, agile and scalable network in order to make sure paramount systems work together

Optimizing service and application delivery depend upon having the right networking and WAN foundations, and the best way in tackling this is choosing the best colocation partner. These co-location partners have premium cloud architecture, which provide clients with all the upsides of hybrid approach without giving up network stability or data safety. But in order to find such a partner it is important to compare wants and requirements with availability and features offered by colocation service providers.

How To Start

The best approach is so called “inside out” approach. A local colocation provider will provide you with better connectivity, better service and peace of mind. You can also take the opportunity to tour the data center to see firsthand what kind of technology there is as well as security.

Going local is especially important if you live in a region that is safe from natural disasters. Co-location data centers are built with incredibly safety measures, but they are not indestructible.

One of the best regions in India is Jaipur, where natural disasters are slim, plus, the added bonus of being able to drop in and see your partner can help avoid one of the pitfalls of business ownership: Having to rely on a company thousands of miles away to ensure your company can perform well.