Importance of Colocation_PDF

Importance of
Colocation

Colocation is all about location. You are still using your IT infrastructure your servers, storage
applications, etc. but they are now being housed in another location. That’s not the case in a cloud or
managed services environment: with those services, both the location and the technology
infrastructure are the responsibility of the provider. In reality, though, there are many synergies. All
three cloud, managed services, and colocation providers invest heavily in their data centers. Unisecure
offers colocation services at data centers in the US. Some of the same data centers we use for our
cloud and managed services. We provide the physical space while leaving control of the applications
and hardware to our colocation clients.
Colocation is sometimes confused with “hybrid cloud.” They are different solutions, addressing
different needs, but they often work well together. With a hybrid cloud solution, a client uses a mixed
architecture that includes both cloud services and a traditional, hosted infrastructure. This provides
the best of the legacy, physical world—performance, stability, reliability—coupled with all that the
cloud has to offer, including rapid deployment, scalability and consumption-based billing. Hybrid and
colocation work together because the legacy infrastructure can be housed at the client’s location or at
a colocation provider. An enterprise that wants to take advantage of the cloud and maintain its legacy
infrastructure and a house that infrastructure somewhere other than its own premises is a prime
candidate for a hybrid/colocation combination. The fact that so many enterprises fall into this
category is a key reason why Unisecure offers both cloud and colocation services.

The ability to deliver reliable round-the clock, high-bandwidth connectivity is one of the major factors
driving the growth of colocation. Colocation customers should look for a provider with data centers
that offer access to a variety of network providers and support both inter-data-center connectivity
and high-speed routing. Enterprise-class colocation providers will also hold their own range of IP
address space in addition to an autonomous system number (ASN). To help enable dynamic routing,
be on the lookout for facilities that run the Border Gateway Protocol (BGP) with full Internet table
routes. With Unisecure colocation customers get guaranteed uptime and high performance standards
for both local and international traffic.