February 08, 2013, 12:19 PM — Although two of the most quoted reasons for moving infrastructure into the cloud are scalability and elasticity, another reason organizations might consider the cloud is to avoid the painfully expensive costs of building and maintaining a highly available data center. More typically, to get higher control and more customization, organizations choose to house their infrastructures in a third-party data center or colocation center that offers better protection than the company could afford on its own.
Choosing the right colo for your needs is not as straightforward as looking one up in the Yellow Pages. There are a wide array of facilities geared toward different types of users, as well as a similarly wide array of levels of redundancy and scalability. And many of the best colocation centers tend to fly under the radar for security reasons -- chances are you've driven past them without even knowing they were there.
Let me help you know how to find a good facility and what to look for when you visit to help you make the right decision.
