Planning to get more control over your servers? You can surely go with Colocation hosting. This is recommended for the people who want to have complete control over their servers but at the same time, they don’t want to manage the hardware environment. You can certainly use colocation hosting in that case.
You surely might have a lot of things in your mind like what is colocation hosting and whether you should use it or not. We will see all the things you need to know about colocation hosting and we will also see some of the top colocation providers that offer similar colocation services. This will cover all your questions.
What is Colocation web hosting?
Colocation hosting is the type of hosting where the servers are yours but space is given by the hosting company.
In simpler words, you provide them your server (hardware) with a proper configuration, they will maintain the hardware for you. The company is responsible for the bandwidth, data, physical security, and environment of the server. Whereas, you are responsible for the rest of the management.
#7 Best colocation providers
Many reputed companies provide you the right environment, bandwidth, and all the things you will need. You can choose any of these companies.
#1 Colocation America
As the title says, it’s the colocation hosting website where you can collocate the space and leave everything on the company. The company focuses only on colocation hosting servers. So, you will surely get better colocation services here.
It offers scalable and reliable plans to choose from. You will get free set up here which is a great thing. Space is managed perfectly.
Data centers
- Los Angeles
- San Francisco
- Chicago
- Miami
- Philadelphia
- Connecticut
- Boston
- New Jersey
- New York
Features
- N +1 Power redundancy
- 100% network uptime
- Great uplink of 1 GigE port which has bandwidth allocation of 20 Mb/s for dedicated.
- You will also get a free setup and 24/7 support.
#2 Liquidweb
Liquidweb is a popular colocation provider. It is known for providing the best services for hosting. They also allow you to have your server in their space. They already have more than 25000 servers across 3 data centers globally.
The privately-owned data centers have redundant cooling and power supply. The tier 1 bandwidth will ensure that your server will get the maximum speed. You will also have a team of experts to monitor it all the time.
Datacenter location
- US central – Lansing, MI with a capacity of 33000 servers.
- US West – Phoenix, AZ with a capacity of 2000 servers.
- EU Central – Amsterdam, NL with a capacity of 8000 servers.
Top Features
- US servers are SSAE-16 and HIPPA compliant.
- EU servers have all the ISO certifications and are PCI-DSS and ISAE 3402 compliant.
- N +1 Power redundancies.
- 24/7 monitoring by level 3 technicians.
- Best cooling and power infrastructure.
- Bandwidth is great.
- The disaster recovery and protection are set up correctly.
- Generators are loaded twice a year.
#3 Sharktech
Sharktech is yet another great company with awesome features that provides colocation space. Their secure data center colocation space will give you peace of mind.
The price will depend on the cabinet size or the server size. You can select the best plan that suits you and then get started with the server. It’s easy and fast.
Data centers
- Los Angeles
- Denver
- Chicago
- Amsterdam
Features
- Different speeds and bandwidth as per the server type and size.
- Transparent pricing
- DDoS protection.
- Multi 100 Gigabit redundant networks
- Top tier data center
#4 ServerMania
If you are looking for a company with a huge amount of experience in the field, you can go with ServerMania. They have been in the industry for a long time and their data centers are a perfect choice for you.
They have data centers at various locations and each location has its own set of features that are always unique. This will surely give you more choice. The next generation of colocation facilities makes it the best company to go with for colocation hosting.
Data centers
- New York with carrier-neutral and 100% renewable energy.
- Buffalo with high-density cooling and tier 1 carrier.
- Los Angeles has low latency connectivity to Asia.
- Montreal also has high-density cooling for your servers.
- London with N+N power redundancy.
Features
- Wide range of selections. You can also go with a half cabinet if you want.
- High bandwidth.
- Security is great.
- Power, climate (renewable energy), and overall cooling are great.
We have already mentioned a couple of more features in the colocation data center part.
#5 Hostdime
Are you looking for the next-gen colocation data center to add your server? You should probably check out Hostdime. You will get a secure environment here.
There are many data centers to choose from. You can either go with the US data center (north America) or you can choose from one of the global data centers.
Datacenter
- US Orlando, FL
- US Miami, FL
- US Los Angeles, CA
- Brazil
- Mexico
- UK
- Colombia
- India
- Hong Kong
Features
- Tier 1 bandwidth colocation provider
- Full racks and private suites
- Anytime visit
- 100% uptime
- You will also get a client portal for support
- Unlimited reboots
#6 Nexcess
Nexcess is another great colocation provider that allows you to have colocation space. If you are planning to have a server in the Michigan area, you can go with Nexcesss.
The colocation data center is located in Detroit and has all the features that you need. The uptime is great and the data center is compliant with all the policies. You can surely have a look at this colocation hosting.
Data Center
- Detroit, Michigan
Features
- 10 Gbps speed across 4 paths.
- 100% uptime SLA.
- Backup generators with 72 hours of fuel.
- Risk avoidance from disaster.
- There are 6 different service providers with 4 paths.
- The support team is always there to help.
#7 UKFast
If you are planning to find a colocation space in the UK, your search is over. You can go with UKFast.
UKFast is a great company from the United Kingdom that provides various services, colocation is one among them. Their data centers are fast and secure. You can always rely on their technical team if something goes wrong. Overall, the colocation service is great.
Datacenter
- Two data centers in the UK
Features
- Tier 3 standard power.
- UPS and Generator – N + 1
- MaNOC cooling system.
- Clean data recovery room
- Great bandwidth and uptime
- High availability
- UK data sovereignty.
- Land and building owned by UKFast
What are the benefits of colocation hosting?
There are many advantages of colocation hosting. We will see all of them here.
It is divided into parts. One is the advantages of colocation over having your own data center space. The second is where you are comparing the colocation hosting with regular hosting.
We will see the first view here. We have a different section where we will compare it with web hosting.
As of now, we will focus on the advantages of colocation hosting.
- Speed: Performance is the main thing why people prefer colocation hosting. The data centers of the colocation hosting provider have huge bandwidth with excellent speed. Therefore, your servers will run much faster as compared to the regular ones.
- Connectivity and Uptime: You will need to ensure that the server is working all the time.
- Power supply and cooling: They have a redundant power supply with a great cooling colocation facility to ensure that your servers keep working properly.
- Monitoring: The data centers are monitored 24/7 for all the technical difficulties as well as to secure them from physical damage.
- Security: You can surely rely on the security of the servers.
- Scalable: The next benefit you will get here is scalability. You can easily scale up the servers anytime you want. You can also convert it to the hybrid cloud server. Technically, you are just one step behind cloud integration.
- Affordable: it will cost you less. If you rest out data center space directly and then get the bandwidth and make the complete infrastructure, it will cost you way more. Instead, this will cost you very little. Therefore, you can surely rely on this.
There are plenty of more benefits you will get if you go with colocation hosting.
What are the Disadvantages of Colocation hosting?
It’s not just about the advantages. There is always another side of the picture. The same goes for colocation hosting. There are some of the disadvantages you will get here.
We will also be seeing all the cons about the colocation hosting service.
Now, not all the disadvantages apply to each hosting service. Depending on the host features, you will face some of these disadvantages.
- Pricing: The pricing of some colocation space is too high. Therefore, it won’t be feasible for your server.
- Pricing fluctuations: If you are using the “pay-as-you-go” model for pricing, you will surely see some of the big fluctuations in bandwidth usage.
- Location: It is always hard to find the perfect location. We already saw some of the top colocation providers spaces that mostly covers all the popular region. However, there are still some people who will want the server to be located in a different space. You won’t be able to do that.
- Management: You will have to manage the entire server. You are responsible for all the things here. This can be a headache for some people.
What is the difference between web hosting and colocation?
Web hosting will give you the entire server for rent, you can use the server. You don’t have complete control over the server. The server is stored at their data center. Depending on what type of hosting you bought, there might be other people using the same server. The hosting company charges you for using the server and all the features.
Colocation is where you have your own server (hardware). You are configuring it and sending it to the hosting company’s data center. Here, the hosting company will provide the bandwidth, security, and uptime to the server in their data center. The hosting company charges you for renting space, bandwidth, and service charges.
This is the simple difference between web hosting and colocation.
In colocation, you can also take a physical visit to the server. You have better control as you own the server. Even though the modern-day hosting service will include a huge level of control. However, if you want complete control, you will have to go with the colocation hosting. Here, you will get more control. For example, you can reboot your server as many times as you want.
Should I go with Colocation hosting?
The last question that you might have is whether you should go with colocation hosting or not.
We are going to see the right answer here.
There are many things to consider here before we can answer this question.
The first thing is what are you comparing colocation hosting with?
Are you planning to go with the managed dedicated server? If that’s the case then you need to understand that if you want an extreme level of control, only then you should prefer colocation hosting. For the rest of the people, you can always go with a dedicated server. The dedicated server or cloud hosting also provides enough control for you. Therefore, you can surely rely on a dedicated server or cloud hosting.
On the other hand, if you are comparing having your data center or powering the server by yourself, you should go with colocation hosting. Colocation hosting will cost you less and will give you better features. You surely don’t want to have a deep dive into all the management stuff. Instead, you can let the experts manage the hardware and you can focus on the software side. We already saw earlier what are the advantages you will get. So, you’re welcome to check them out again.
Lastly, it is surely your choice whether you should go with colocation hosting or not.
